In keeping with the “someone’s watching me” theme for 2025, let’s talk about Google.
I have mixed feelings. They provide gmail, maps, search and lots of other free tools. I have a Nest thermostat and my GOOGL shares from 2013 are up over 1,000%. There is a lot to like.
But Google’s parent Alphabet makes its money (and lots of it) through advertising. Go to Google and search for table saw.
First you’ll see ads for table saws. Then you’ll see ads for companies like Home Depot. I need to do some scrolling to get to get to some actual information about table saws.
All of these companies pay Google to display their ads. If you’re a company selling table saws, what’s the best way to advertise – put a billboard out on 95 and hope one or 2 of the million motorists driving by each day see it and are interested in a table saw, or have a technology company show my ad to people who search for table saw, tools, cutting, Makita, DeWalt, or any other relevant term?
Advertising has moved online for a good reason. It’s effective because the advertisers can better target their potential customer base.
Data
Effective advertising is all about data. Knowing what folks are searching for is a good start. What else can we add?
Knowing that I play golf, Titleist could target me for ads for their clubs and golf balls. These ads would not be effective for my mom who is 89, so Titleist will want to find an ad partner who knows the demographics of its customers. The more the ad provider knows, the better chance of the ad leading to a sale.
Google knows this, so they’ve become masters at collecting data. They offer us lots of free products and services like gmail, chrome, search, news, finance, and others so that they can gather more and more info about us.
What Does Google Know?
Here’s an example:
This is from my Google data download. Google, like many companies on the internet, provide users a way to see the info they’re collecting. I’d like to think it’s because they are nice people, but it is more likely because of the California Consumer Privacy Act.
Companies that do business in California have to abide by this for their California customers so most have added these rights for all.
Back to Google
But anyway, back to Google knowing that on Nov 13, I was using the Google News app and I read an article about a cordless leaf blower on Amazon.
I understand why Google wants to know this. Now they know I’m likely interested in leaf blowers, tools and Amazon. But it’s also a little creepy. What else do they know?
Let’s take a look at search.
I was at a party telling someone about the paradors in Spain. I searched on my phone. There it is.
I also checked the Hyline cruise ship status when the ferries home from Nantucket were being canceled due to wind.
Apparently, I was also getting some notifications from Google on weather and the market. That’s a surprise to me.
And Lots More
I downloaded my Google data (more on this in a sec) and here are the categories.
Every interaction is logged. The hotels I looked at, map locations I searched, news articles I clicked, Images I searched for, YouTube videos I watched…
Take a look. Even if your history is as dull as mine, you’ll be shocked at how much Google knows (and can sell) about you.
How do I find out?
Google, to their credit, makes this pretty easy to find and to opt out of.
At the top right, click on your Google icon and click manage your google account.
Privacy and Personalization is right there
Right at the top, you can view your data, or update settings to prevent your data from being captured.
If you scroll down a bit, you can download a copy.
Next Steps
Kudos for Google for making this easy to find, but like me, I’m sure you’ll be shocked at the amount of data that is captured.
Now it is time to start turning this off.
I started by clicking the My Activity box and there is an option on the lower right to delete. As you can see, I now have no activity.
I also toggled off Web, Timeline and YouTube controls.
I did a few searches and confirmed that I still have no activity. So the changes seem to be working.
Am I Safe?
Who knows?
While I’d like to think that deleting my data and disabling activity tracking will be the end of it, I’m not sure I believe this.
While Google may not be capturing the same information and just not telling me about it, I suspect they still capture a lot of data from my searches and other actions. While they may not tie this to my account, I am sure it is linked to my IP address and smart folks like Google, Data Brokers and criminals can put this together and learn a lot about me.
So What Do I Do?
Don’t sign in. My wife is a huge proponent of this one. While companies like Google can tie our identity to an IP address, don’t make it easy for them by signing in. This can be tricky. I use Google’s website tools frequently for my blog. While signed-in, and when I forget to sign-out, it makes it easy for them to track. Same for gmail users. Keep your gmail account on your phone? It’s probably always signed in.
Is this effective? The fact that Google pushes us to sign-in in order to get the best experience leads me to believe this is valuable to them.
Use a VPN. Our IP address is our online identity. Whether you have a set IP address that you keep indefinitely, or you are assigned a new one periodically by your internet service provider, companies are really good at IP address tracking. A VPN provides 2 key protections.
- If I go to Google and search for table saws, my search request stops off at my VPN provider before it goes to Google to search. My VPN provider forwards the request to Google from its own server, using its server’s IP address. When the request comes back to the VPN provider’s server. The VPN provider matches that response up with my requesting IP address and sends it back to me. As far as Google knows, NORDVPN was searching for table saws.
- A VPN protects the data in transit. It is often described as creating a tunnel for your data so that no one can access it in transit.
Wrap-Up
4 quick tasks. 1 and 2 are important and should be done today. Shouldn’t take you more than 10 minutes. The other 2 are something to consider to further protect yourself.
- Download your data from Google. You’ll be shocked.
- Toggle off all data capture so they can no longer track us (supposedly)
- Consider signing out
- Consider a VPN
Good luck!