How to Use Google's New My Activity Privacy Tool
July 01 2016 - 4:26PM
Dow Jones News
By Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Have you ever wondered what data Google collects on you as you
surf the web and use its apps and services? My Activity, a new tool
from the Alphabet Inc.-owned search giant, gives you a better
picture than ever before of your digital tracks -- but it still
doesn't tell you everything.
If you have a Google account (and you do if you use Gmail,
Google Docs, YouTube or any other Google services), you'll find My
Activity at myaccount.google.com. Once logged in, you get a list of
privacy and security options, including a link that says "Go to my
activity."
There you will see a timeline of websites you visited (with
links), things you have looked up in Google's search engine or the
Google Play app store, places found in Google Maps and videos you
watched in YouTube. A search box lets you find specific things in
your vast timeline and filter searches by date or by a specific
Google product (Chrome, YouTube, Maps, etc.).
Like a browser history, My Activity also lets you delete
specific events. Just click the three-dot button for a menu. A
Google spokeswoman said that when you delete anything from My
Activity, Google no longer takes that data into consideration when
profiling you.
Having this all in one location, across so many Google apps and
services, is both helpful and more transparent. Here's the catch:
My Activity defaults to only showing data for the device you are on
at the time. If you want to see this data across multiple devices,
then you will need to opt in to an advertising privacy setting that
will give Google permission to combine this data with other data on
you that Google currently keeps separate. This includes the data it
collects from your personal interactions inside Gmail, Google
Calendar and other apps you won't see listed in My Activity.
Google already tracks some of what you do inside those apps, to
add booked flights to your calendar, for example, or block spammy
emails. However, until now it didn't use that data to target ads at
you. A spokeswoman for the company said that combining these two
silos of data will let Google better personalize the ads you see in
apps and the web in the short term, and in the long term, it will
lead to better privacy tools too. Even after you opt to combine all
your data, there is still no way to see precisely what Google is
logging when it is combing through all of your emails.
Bear in mind, whether or not you opt into Google's personalized
ad tracking, you still will see personalized ads -- they just
likely will be less relevant to your interests.
If you do want to opt in, go back to the My Account website.
Under Personal Info & Privacy, there is a link for ad settings.
Click that, then click "Manage ads settings." Next to the check box
for Google's ad personalization, there is some text that is worth
reading: "Also use Google Account activity and information to
personalize ads on these websites and apps and store that data in
your Google Account." You can opt out later if you want.
Like Google, Facebook tracks the websites you visit, and
collects data on what you do inside of its apps and services, using
all that data to target ads. But whereas Google gives you a choice
whether or not to combine these different data sets, Facebook does
it by default. If you don't want Facebook to track your web
activity to target ads, you have to dig into a series of confusing
menus to turn it off.
I've opted out of Facebook's tracking because there is no real
benefit for me since I largely ignore the ads I see on Facebook
anyway. But I've opted in to Google's new personalized ad tracking
because of the incentive of being able to see what Google is
tracking across all my devices. If Facebook ever creates something
as easy and transparent as what Google is doing with My Activity, I
might change my mind.
Whatever your preference, My Activity is a great tool for anyone
with a Google account -- and an important reminder that when you do
use all these free apps and services, you are giving up personal
data to do it.
Write to Nathan Olivarez-Giles at
Nathan.Olivarez-giles@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 01, 2016 16:11 ET (20:11 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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