Software
Google is now automatically removing location and search history for new users by default
Google announced on Wednesday broad changes in its default data practice for new users, including an increase in its willingness to delete the data automatically.
The company's commitment to privacy, security and user choice was stressed in a blog post announcing changes. CEO Sundar Pichai stressed. We concentrate on three important principles when designing our products: safeguarding your knowledge, dealing with it responsibly and managing it, "Pichai wrote. "We announce changes to privacy today in order to help."
The autodelete feature of Google refers to the history of the quest, position history and voice commands (on or in the app), which are obtained from the Google Assistant or apps such as Google Home.
Google logs the data on its My Activity page, in which users can look at the collected data points and delete individual items manually. Google traditionally retained the information for no period of time, but in 2019 the company introduced a way of automatically deleting data points, depending on the environment chosen, after three months or 18 months.
From today, the default settings for new users will be set. After 18 months, Google will auto-delete web and app searches, even if users don't take action at all. The location history of Google is deactivated by default, but when users allow this, it is also disabled by default in 18 months.
The updated defaults will apply only to new users and there are no modifications to current Google accounts. In order to push more users to analyze their autodelete settings, however, Google will also promote the option on the search page and on YouTube. On the Event Controls tab auto-delete can be turned on.
It also extends to the history of YouTube, though the default period is three years to ensure the wider data can be utilized by the recommendation algorithms of the platform.
The new settings in some ways represent a compromise between users' privacy interests and Google's commercial interests as an ad network.
The latest data of a user is also the most valuable because it can be used to target people who deal with a specific product recently.
Google retains the majority of the ad value while deleting the majority of the data otherwise available, with the last 18 months of its activity.
In addition to the new default configurations, Google will make Chrome Incognito more convenient for users , enabling mobile users to switch to Incognito mode with a long press on their profile. The feature launches on iOS today and will soon be available on Android and other platforms.
Earlier this week Google announced that it would expand the Password Checkup tool.
