How to Delete Everything that Google Knows About You

What information does Google know?

We're all pretty aware by now that big tech companies collect our data but what you might not know is that Google is the absolute grand master at doing so. According to an analysis by StockApps.com, out of the five big tech players, Google harvests the most user data.

Beating Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Apple in the ranks, Google collects 39 data points. To put this in perspective, Apple collects just 12.

Google's data collection isn't a cloak-and-dagger situation— it isn't snooping around in your private files for things you've kept a secret. Google is simply gathering and storing the data you give them just by using their services. And to which you agreed.

The problem is that no one has the time, energy, or patience to read pages-long privacy policies. This means that the majority of Google users are unaware of the data or the amount of data that they are handing over.

Let's change that and have a look at the data collected by Google's main services.

Google Search: Every search you've ever done using Google's search engine.

Google Chrome: Websites you've visited (even those not reached via the search bar), saved passwords, extensions you use, bookmarks, anything saved for autofill, and finance details.

YouTube: Your watch history, search history, videos you've uploaded, comments you've made, and the channels you've subscribed to. All this data is marked with a date and time stamp.

Google Maps: Has access to your location, travel routes, speed, and places you visit frequently, such as your home, work, or restaurants. This data provides insights into your interests, movement, and behavior. Also, if you have location history turned on, Google will also be able to pinpoint where you were on any given day in the past.

Android: Tracks your location, even if you have Google location settings turned off (or WiFi turned off). An idle Android device with Chrome installed will send location data to Google 340 times in just 24 hours.

Google Photos: Records the time and GPS coordinates for every photo. Image analysis can identify modes of transportation, animals, logos, landmarks, text, and faces.

Google Pay: Collects user address and phone number, transaction information (date and amount), type of payment used, and descriptions of the items purchased.

Why does Google need all this data?

When you sync your Google accounts, all the information is combined to form a very accurate picture of who you are and how you live your life. For example, Chrome data can be added to Google Maps data, and to that, metadata from your Gmail usage, Android apps, and the products you buy with Google Pay.

This “data soup” enables Google to create a picture of your personality, living situation, marital status, and interests, and even make assumptions about whether you're happy in your job.

But why?

Why does Google need all of this data and what does it do with it?

While some of the data is necessary for apps to function, Google's Privacy Policy states that collecting data allows them to provide better services by improving and customizing your online experience. But it also allows them to paint a detailed advertising profile of you which is used for targeted advertising.

“Google uses the information shared by sites and apps to deliver our services, maintain and improve them, develop new services, measure the effectiveness of advertising, protect against fraud and abuse, and personalize content and ads you see on Google and on our partners' sites and apps.” - Google

The more data they have, the more precise the advertising can be, and the more money for the almighty Google. In fact, Google's advertising revenue topped $56 billion in Q2 2022.

Why should this worry you?

With so much data that directly links to identifiable persons, the potential damage from a Google data breach is catastrophic. And it's not impossible.

In 2018, Google+ was hit with two significant data breaches that eventually caused Google to close its social media platform.

In March 2018, a bug was discovered that exposed up to 500,000 users' data between 2015 and 2018. During that time, more than 430 different third-party applications could have had access to information such as a user's name, email, gender, age, and occupation.

But since Google only maintains logs of API use for two weeks, there was no way of knowing the exact number for the four-year window.

At the time, Google failed to disclose the details of the breach to the public to avoid “regulatory interest” and the type of public scrutiny that Facebook was receiving for the Cambridge Analytical fiasco.

Later the same year, after an update, another API bug exposed data from 52.5 million Google+ accounts. The bug allowed external apps to access data that had been shared privately between Google+ users.

If it happened not just once, but twice, it can certainly happen again.

How to find, control, and delete your Google data

There are two ways to get to the “data control center” on Google. You can go directly to the Activity controls, where you'll be given options to adjust settings for the following:

• Web & App Activity
• Location History
• YouTube History
• Ad Personalization

Or login into your Google Account, and choose the Data and Privacy settings from the menu on the left-hand side of the page.

There you'll be given the option to adjust data and privacy settings on the following:

• The things you've done and places you've been: This includes your history settings for Web & App Activity, Location History, YouTube History, and Ad Personalization
• The info you share with others: Control your profile info and who can see it, and location-sharing settings
• Data from apps and services you use: Here you can get a summary of the services you use and the data stored in your Google Account

How to delete your web & app activity

Scroll down to “Things you've done and places you've been”.

In History settings, click on Web & App Activity.

This will take you into the Activity Controls mentioned above.

Here you can perform the following actions:

• Turn on/off data saving for activity on all of Google's sites and apps
• See and delete activity by apps and services
• (Un)Select to include Chrome history and activity on sites and apps
• (Un)Select to include voice and audio
• Configure the auto-delete function. The default is 18 months, but you can change it to 3 or 36 months.

If you want greater control over what data is deleted from what apps and when, then click on the blue “Manage all Web and App Activity” at the bottom of the section.

You'll see the same options to turn on/off data saving and auto-delete, but below this is a search bar for your activity, a filter function, and a second delete option.

This delete button opens a pop-up window, giving you the ability to delete your activity for the last hour, last 24 hours, all time (with the option to select by product or all), or create a custom range.

How to delete your location history

Go back to the “Things you've done and places you've been to” on the Data & Privacy page.

Below Web and App Activities, you'll see Location History. Click on it.

Here you can select to turn on/off location history – which saves details of where you go with your devices, no matter whether you use a Google service or not.

Select “Manage History” to see a full detailed timeline and map of your travels with Google.

How to delete your YouTube history

From the same Data and Privacy page, select the YouTube History option. Here you can turn on/off the data saving for YouTube and make choices to include watch history, search history, or any YouTube voice and audio activity.

Clicking on Manage History gives you more options to control your YouTube data, and configure auto-deletion options.

How to turn off personalization for ads and Search

Back to the Data & Privacy page we go and scroll down until you see Ad settings and Personal results in Search.

In Ad settings, you'll see what is known as your ad profile. This is your profile according to Google and is based on your browsing habits and location info. The point of this profile is to serve you with more personalized ads.

Your ad profile includes Google's estimate of your age, gender, what language you speak, what music you're into, whether you have kids, and much more.

In Personal results in Search, you can decide whether your Search results will be personalized based on your Google Account info.

Other ways to reduce the data Google collects

Delete your Google Account or Apps: Perhaps a drastic approach, but it���s the only way to reduce the data Google collects. We say, “reduce”, as if you have an Android phone, Google will still be able to collect some data on you. You can read how to delete your YouTube account here.

Switch to a different browser: Chrome is not the only browser. Firefox and Brave have greater privacy controls and collect much less data. Or use the Tor browser doesn't track your activity, it deletes cookies and site data when the browser is closed.

Use a different search engine: Other search engines are available! Search engines like DuckDuckGo don't track your search history or collect any of your personal information.

Using a VPN: Can hide your IP address and hide your browsing history from your ISP but that's about it. You can still be tracked when using a VPN— web browser fingerprinting can be used to identify you, and VPNs keep their own data logs which will include ur name, email address, IP address, and any billing or credit card information that you provide.

Using Incognito Mode: Prevents your browser from storing the sites you visit, and won't accept any cookies or site data, while also not saving any data added to online forums. BUT your online activities can still be tracked by the websites you visit and your ISP provider.

Use Hoody App: The Hoody app lets you be truly anonymous online while protecting your data. It feeds websites and cookie trackers with completely false data, keeping your data 100% isolated. This unique method of remote browsing means you can avoid digital fingerprinting, and your data being correlated and identified.

Hoody also doesn't collect any data for its own purposes. In fact, it can't by design. We don't ask for your name or email address. So, even to Hoody, you are anonymous.

If that sounds like a good idea, then sign up for the Hoody app, and get access to total privacy online.