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How do I know what Google knows about me?

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Google knows you better than some of your relatives, thanks to the traces left by your actions on computer or smartphone, collected by default and without your knowledge. And if you don’t believe us, just check with our links what the web giant knows about you, you might be surprised:

What Google knows about me

The sites you surf, the searches you do on Google or the videos you watch on YouTube… All your activity leaves traces in cookies that help Google determine what topics interest you. Be aware, however, that Gmail is excluded from this analysis, even though your interests are also observed there to offer you targeted advertisements in your email.

Tip: Know that you can disable the proposal of ads based on your interests, but not remove them completely. Google warns you: these will therefore be less “relevant”, since they will no longer be based on the information associated with your Google account.

What Google knows about your movements

The GPS installed in your smartphone and Google Maps are a wealth of information for Google, which thus keeps track of all your movements. Unless you’ve turned off your location history, you can see where you were on October 12, 2008. You can even save your home and work addresses, and even manually add a location that your cell phone hasn’t saved.

Tip:You can disable the collection of your geolocation data with one click from the page noted above.

What Google knows about your activity on the web

Thought that regularly deleting your web browser history would prevent Google Chrome from permanently collecting information about your searches and the sites you visit? You were wrong, as evidenced by the page listing your past searches and content viewed in Chrome and other apps.

Tip:You can delete this data by clicking on the three small vertical dots at the top right of the page. Then click on “Delete Options” > “Advanced” > “All Period” > “Delete” > and finally confirm the deletion.

What Google knows about the services you use

There are more services offered by Google than you might think. The proof is on this page, which lists all the services you use and the different devices connected to your account (computers, tablets, phones, chomecast, etc…), as well as the usage statistics of these services (Calendar, Google Docs, Google Photos, Contacts, etc.)

Tip: If you’re concerned about others accessing your account, you can set up a monthly “reminder” email inviting you to check your “Google Dashboard,” which is always accessible and reflects recent activity on your account.

What apps have access to your Google data

Sometimes you may give permission to certain services or apps to access your data. Sometimes you do it quickly, caught up in the urgency of a task at hand, and then you forget. Hence the interest of this page compiling all the applications that have access to some of your Google data, and especially to which data they have access.

Tip: it is of course possible for you to remove the access rights you had granted and that you no longer consider relevant. To do this, simply click on the application in question and “delete”.

What Google may or may not know in general

This page includes some of the previously mentioned activities, but there are others, including what Google listens to…

Tip:You can see in this recap screen what you haven’t yet disabled… because it’s never too late.


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