Make your Google Stupid again! Or how to take charge of Googles hidden surveilance.

Google takes your privacy very seriously - or rather Google is very serious and systematic about tracking and storing every little detail about your digital and physical movements and actions.

Even though you turn off certain tracking permissions on you phone, table or computer browser, there is a series of hidden tracking controls that allow Google to constantly track you. For example, even if you turn location tracking on your phone, Google is still collecting your location data, because you without knowing have given it permission in other hidden settings. If that sounds outrageous, you are right. Google's privacy settings are on purpose made complicated, so you give up and just accept everything.

Google used that data to earn billions every year through adds. And at the same time it learns even more from your activity to manipulate you and your children through aggressive algorithms to stay longer on Google services and devices.

Why should Google earn billions off your private data and the same time put your mental health in jeopardy? It is about the time you take control and make Google stupid again!

What to do?

You can do something about this imbalance of power and turn those hidden settings off.

Go to https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity

You will land on this page. Here you will see everything, that Google has collected about your activity through the years (the blue arrow). And on this page you can click on "Activity controls" (red arrow) to turn off the tracking.

Data Tracking

Here are the 6 aspects of tracking:

1. Web and App Activity,
2. Location history,
3. Device information,
4. Voice and Audio activity,
5. YouTube search history,
6. YouTube play history.

For each those parameters you can easily turn the tracking off by sliding the blue dot to the left, so it becomes grey and Google confirmed that the tracking is "set on pause". Then you should go back MyActivity page and delete ALL history, so that Google does no longer has the ability to use your old activity data.

You are DONE! :D

If you are curious about what data is collected about you, what it is used for and what are the consequences for you, if you turn tracking off - you can keep on reading...

1. Web and App Activity

Web & app activity saves the things that you do on Google sites, apps and services. This includes your Gmail communication, your searches and interactions with Google partners, as well as any associated information such as location and language. This data may be saved and used in any Google service where you are signed in. If you use your device without an Internet connection, your data may still be saved in your account once you return online.

You can turn off the tracking of your Web and App activity by sliding the blue dot to the left until it becomes grey.

Consequence to you

Google uses that data to create a profile of you, which makes it easier to give your personalised advertising and make money off of you. You will not suffer any negative consequences in you browsing ability by turning this function off. But you will stop receiving personalised adds - and who cares about that? Since you probably use Ad blocker or skip those adds without paying any attention to them. I would additionally suggest to use https://duckduckgo.com/ as your default search engine instead of Google, and https://brave.com/ as your default browser.

2. Location history

Location History saves where you go with your devices. To save this data, Google regularly obtains location data from your devices. This data is saved even when you aren't using a specific Google service, such as Google Maps or Search. If you use your device without an Internet connection, your data may be saved in your account once you return online. Turn off Location tracking by sliding the blue dot to the left.

Consequence to you

Google loves to tracks your location of where you've been through map. Trading in location data is a 22 billion dollar industry. Google tracks your commute between home and work, or work and hobby activities, or even the days, when you are sick at home. It knows that you have been on a shopping spree, when you told your boss that you are sick at home. Or how often and with whom you do your extramarital activities, even though you tell your spouse that you are visiting a friend. Google knows how often you get drunk with friends in your local pub, or how often you visit your local McDonalds, even though you Instagram feed is filled with "healthy living" posts.

Your location data is the most revealing, brutally honest data about you, that often contradicts the carefully tailored image that you otherwise try to project on SoMe.

By turning location tracking off, you will gain a measure of privacy and get rid of recommendations based on places that you've visited and intrusive ads, both on and off Google. What's not to like?

3. Device information

Device Information stores info about your contacts, calendars, apps, music, audio files, films, books and other data from your devices. It also stores diagnostic info about your devices, such as the battery level, the quality and duration of network connections, touch-screen and sensor readings, and crash reports.

If you use a shared device or sign in with more than one account, information might be saved in another account on the device. If you use your device without an Internet connection, your data may be saved in your account once you return online. Turn off Device activity tracking by sliding the blue dot to the left.

Consequence to you

When you give Google access to your contacts and calendar, you inadvertently put other peoples (your contacts) privacy in jeopardy and proved their time/location and behavioural data to Google without their knowledge or consent. By turning this tracking off, you will see less personalised adds, but otherwise will not lose any functionality on the devices.

4. Voice & Audio Activity

Voice & Audio activity records your voice and other audio on Google services and from sites, apps and devices that use or connect to Google speech services.

The recording only happens when you use audio activation commands, such as touch the microphone icon or say commands such as "Ok Google" and includes a few seconds before to catch your request at the right time. If you use your device without an Internet connection, your data may be saved in your account once you return online. Turn off Voice & Audio activity tracking by sliding the blue dot to the left.

Consequence to you

I personally stay as far as possible from voice assistants, as ere are so many privacy and ethics implications to unpack here. In the age of "Deep Fakes" (videos where one persons face can be exchanged with another person), your voice samples is a valuable data. If any one organisation can gather and process enough of your voice & speech samples through AI, they will be able to create content, where they AI can say virtually anything or commit a crime using your voice.

So I will not be able to advice on the loss of functionality. However, my educated guess would be that Voice and Audio recognition of your devices will still works just fine

5. YouTube search history

YouTube search history saves your YouTube searches. If you use your device without an Internet connection, your data may be saved in your account once you return online. Turn off YouTube history tracking by sliding the blue dot to the left.

Consequence to you

YouTube is the second largest search engine, that it why every single thing you type in the search window is a treasure trove of data and insight into your innermost desires, problems and private life.

Googles personalised adds are based partially on your search history. That is why it sometimes feels like someone is always listening to your private conversations and then serves you adds about it.

By turning this tracking off you will not lose any functionality. But you will make your YouTube very stupid. It will no longer be very good at suggesting you relevant content. Googles (and FBs, and Twitters) algorithms are made to show you more of the same content that you previously searched for, because it is in Googles interest to keep you on YouTube for as long as possible. That is why you can never just see 1 video on YouTube. It is very addictive and one video turns often into 5 hours of YouTube wormhole of wasted time :(

At the same time YouTube algorithms are build to show you more extreme versions of the viewed content to constantly keep you interested. That is why an innocent Micky Mouse video can easily turn into pornographic nazy horror, that your kids are exposed to on YouTube in return for advertising revenue.

By turning this tracking off, you will gain more authonomy from the time-waste. You will have to proactively search for video content that you want to see, but in return spend less time on the platform, because you will not be sucked in by other "relevant" suggestions. Another "stupidity" feature of not tracking YouTube search history, is that you will see more suggestions in your feed of videos, that are a few years old and that you already have seen. But that is a minor tradeoff. You can still receive notifications in App about new videos from your favourite channels by turning the "bell" icon on, when you subscribe to a channel.

For example from this fantastic YouTube channel from DPO Denmark, where you can become friends with data protection regulations and get smarter on how to protect your privacy. (hehe - shameless and honest self promotion her.)

6. YouTube Play history

YouTube watch history saves the YouTube videos you watch and listen to. If you use your device without an Internet connection, your data may be saved in your account once you return online.

Consequence to you

You will no longer be able to easily find that fun video, you saw a couple of days ago, when you want to share it with a friend. But you will still be able to add videos of consequence to your own playlist, so you can easily find relevant videos again. Turing off this play history tracking gives you more privacy from Google's hidden surveillance and improves your mental health, so it is worth a minor loss in functionality.

Hope you found this article useful, and can now take charge of your privacy against Googles agressive data harvesting. :D