How to Limit Google Tracking and Data Collection
- Felipe Photons
- Dec 12, 2018
- 1 min read
Google has been under fire lately for political bias, data breaches, service outages, aiding the China with censorship and surveillance (DragonFly), CEO dumping stocks, fire at Google's office in China minutes after hearing, list goes on... Not to mention Facebook, Twitter, etc. Until these big tech companies are regulated or go 100% open source (emphasis 100%) and decentralized, how can we trust how they handle our personal information? In the meantime, here's how to limit the information Google collects about you.
Warning: This will result non-targeted ads (the old fashion way :), no YouTube / Google search history, YouTube not highlighting which videos you've watched, YouTube not showing your watch progress on a video, and Google Maps GPS history to name a few. Proceed at your own discernment.
Personally, I got rid of everything except my YouTube comments and live chat history. :)
Pause all your Google Activity page. Tap all buttons on the right to turn off ("pause").
Delete your activity by clicking "Manage Activity" under each item:
Web Search (change setting to "All time")
GPS history (click on the trash button at the bottom right) https://maps.google.com/maps/timeline
Device information (click "Delete All" on the left)
Voice & Audio (click "Delete activity by" on the left and change to "All time")
YouTube Search History (click "Delete activity by" on the left and change to "All time")
YouTube Watch History (click "Delete activity by" on the left and change to "All time")
Double check your YouTube information here also:
Turn off your ad-personalization:
Did I miss anything? How can I make this posting better? How do you protect your data? Comment below!