What services of IT corporations collect information about the user. Google knows a lot about you
Google does not hide the fact that it will know about its users, if not all, then a lot. Even when you created your account, you were warned that your search history, YouTube views, audio information, purchases, contacts, call data will be tracked. That's just spelled out all this in a multi-page agreement, which not everyone can read to the end.
Google explains that all this is done in order to adapt to users and make products more convenient. For example, to provide customized offers, content or applications. But most importantly, the information is used to select the most tailored advertising for you.
Why Google Tracking is Dangerous
You should limit the data that Google collects by default, if only because your personal information may fall into the wrong hands. And not only if someone hacks the account.
Your information may be leaked to the Internet. Through your own fault
So, in July, the Yandex search engine indexed files from the Google Docs service that were not protected by privacy settings. included in Google Docs files. The first thing users found through a Yandex search was passwords. Passwords to personal and work accounts in social networks, to e-mail and other services turned out to be in the public domain. In addition, the numbers of electronic wallets were found in the documents. However, all password-protected documents did not appear in the search results. The leak occurred due to the negligence of the users themselves.
Your information may be passed on to third parties. Perfectly legal
The user agreement clearly states to whom Google can share your confidential information:
- Private companies, if you have given your consent. An example from Google: "If you contacted a driver call service using Google Home, we will provide your address to this service only with your permission."
- Google affiliates and other trusted companies and persons to process on behalf of Google.
- Law enforcement agencies, security forces, the FSB.
- Publishers, advertisers, developers. Example from Google: “We provide this information so that users can learn about trends in the use of our services. In addition, we allow selected partners to collect information from your browser or device using their own cookies and other technologies and use it to display ads and measure their effectiveness.”
Why Google is tracking you
The task of Google, like any commercial structure in this world, is to make money. One way is to sell ads more effectively. To do this, the service collects a huge amount of information about everything. After all, you register and use the product for free, and for each you have to pay for free, one way or another.
An excerpt from Google's user agreement:
How to get rid of Google tracking
If you just got tired of Google ads that offer you products for your needs (you never know what and when you were looking for and don’t want to advertise it), you can disable personalization. For this . But this does not mean that Google will stop collecting information on you. It will just be less of a concern.
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However, any user can ban Google not only to offer advertising, but also to collect information.
For Google to stop tracking entirely(in any case, according to the parameters that he officially talks about), just what is now enabled by default.
If you are ready to provide information about your preferences on YouTube, but do not want to be listened to, then the following instructions are for you:
To access your personal dossier, you need to log into your account,
Here are collected settings for search queries and pages viewed; the places you have visited; information from devices; voice requests and commands; the video you searched for and watched on YouTube.
All data from the microphone of your phone is stored. Just say "OK Google" once, and everything that interests you will become known to advertisers.
Few users think about security and privacy online. Very often we go online and log in to personal accounts from various devices - from smartphones and computers that are available to other users. In addition, modern sites and web services collect a large amount of statistics and user data. Google is no exception. In fact, Google knows more about you than you can imagine. So, what is so interesting Google knows about us users?
Google has developed a lot of services that are used by more than 1 billion people around the world. This is a search engine (google), mail (gmail), Google Earth (Google Earth), maps ( Google Maps), YouTube (Youtube) and others. Each of these services collects user data that is used for effective online advertising and other purposes known only to Google.
Websites that share user information with Google
Google uses its own services in which users provide up-to-date information about themselves. In this case, you agree that the data specified when registering accounts are real, and also give your consent to the processing of personal data by Google. I doubt that more than 1% of users from the CIS countries read the terms of the user agreement or the public offer in full before clicking "Agree" and starting to use the service or program.
In addition, the company collects numerous technical data and parameters related to software and technical specifications user devices (computer, mobile phone from which you signed in to Google services).
Which sites report user data to Google
There are not too many sites that send user data to Google. But the specifics of the information received by Google allows us to assess the extent of "surveillance" of users.
Google+ Profile
A personal profile on Google+ is similar to pages on other social networks. You fill in the basic data - your age, gender, main interests (you agree to the processing of these data by Google). This data is taken into account when selecting appropriate advertisements that will be shown to you on the pages of partner sites using Google.Adwords. Detailed user information is available at www.google.com/ads/preferences/
User location and movement history
If you are using an Android smartphone, it has the ability and ability to send your current position and speed to Google. In addition, some applications require permission to send the coordinates of the user's device in order to work correctly. You probably noticed that when you find yourself in some location, a notification appears on your smartphone about the possibility of uploading photos and descriptions for this place. You can view your location history and output it to maps.google.com/locationhistory
Google search history
Google constantly monitors the queries that the user asks the search engine, especially if the user is logged into one of the Google services. In this case, the sent requests are encrypted and hidden from the built-in statistics systems. The user's reaction to pop-up ads and any user behavior with search results is also tracked and controlled. This is used to improve search algorithms, select more relevant (corresponding) ads history.google.com
Login devices
Google keeps track of devices, IP addresses, locations, ways to access its services, and accounts Google users. The user can view the corresponding lists and find out if someone else uses his Google accounts and services security.google.com/settings/security/activity
List of applications that have access to your Google data
This list shows applications that can work with personal data of Google users. The user can see what rights and opportunities these programs have, as well as change the level of access to personal data security.google.com/settings/security/permissions
Export Google user data
Users of Google services have the option to export or archive their personal data from their google accounts. Information from the following applications and services is available for export: bookmarks, mail, contacts, calendar, files from Drive, youtube videos, picasa photos, etc. www.google.com/takeout
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Business details displayed on Google come from a variety of different sources. They’re meant to provide customers with the most complete and up-to-date information possible. The details associated with your business come from the information you provide when creating and updating a verified business listing, reports from users, and other sources.
Information in Google My Business
For example, if customers search for a restaurant you manage, they can find information you've added, such as when you're open and where you're located. They also might get information you haven't added, such as a link to your menu or photos customers have uploaded of meals they've enjoyed. The combination of information provided by you and other sources lets customers make informed decisions about your location. Users may also find personalized recommendations and matches based on their preferences.
How Google sources business information
There are 4 main sources of information that you may find in your business listing:
- you: Information you've added about your business. You can add, edit, and remove this information as it changes to keep customers up to date and showcase your products and services. Learn how to manage your business information.
- Your website: Information from your business's official website.
- Users: Information from people who use Google services. Google gets a wide variety of information about businesses from its users. This user-generated information includes reviews, popular times, and photos. Your Business Profile is updated when someone takes an action like leaving a review, uploading a photo, or reporting a problem.
- Third party sources: Information from other places online. If Google finds information about your business that could be helpful to customers, it may be added to your listing. This can include links to restaurant menus, social profiles , hotel amenities , or booking/ticketing availability .
Information in local search results
Google uses business information to help surface relevant local search results across Google, such as in Google Maps and Search.
For example, if you own a hair salon, your business might appear in local search results for people who search for “salons near me” or “salons open now” because you’ve provided information that includes your address and hours.
Does not collect information for sale, or even more so in the interests of some universal conspiracy.
Everything is much more prosaic: personal information helps to determine the tastes and habits of users. To do this, Google stores data about the gender, age, interests, as well as user search queries, including voice ones.
For example, after analyzing the requests of a single person, search system will offer goods or services related to the object of previous requests. For example, if a user was looking for where to buy a smartphone, then contextual advertising will offer accessories for this phone model.
Another object of controversy is the collection of information about the location of its customers by the “corporation of good”, which makes especially nervous ones constantly turn off the transfer of geodata.
Google collects data on the movement of users using their own smartphones: when using, for example, the Google Maps service, the owner of the device gives out his location. The time during which a particular user was in a certain place, and even the speed of movement, is recorded.
Thanks to this information, the search engine will issue places that provide certain services closest to the user, again consistent with his interests.
Not everyone will like the fact that a huge multinational corporation has so much of his personal data. Of course, you can turn off some of the "tracking" services, but most are unlikely to refuse, for example, watching videos on YouTube just so that Google does not recognize the user's preferences.
One example of users outraged by the "violation of privacy" was Anton Burkov, who filed a lawsuit against Google for the fact that the corporation, in his opinion, read his personal correspondence. Burkov demanded 50 thousand rubles from the company. for moral damage. decided to recover the entire amount from the defendant, but Google's lawyers appealed the court's decision. As a result, the Moscow City Court rejected the company's claim, obliging Google to pay 50 thousand rubles. However, the company can still appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
However, Google is far from the only company accumulating the personal data of its customers.
The number of companies that “monitor” the users of their services also includes, which not so long ago was subjected to a flurry of criticism due to the huge amount of data collected latest version operating system from Microsoft - Windows 10.
How to relate to the collection of data by organizations whose services are used by tens of millions of people every day is an open question. On the one hand, in the event of a software failure or hacking of data storages by hackers, the scale of the "drain" of personal information will be simply catastrophic: the confidential data of millions of people will become public, and the corporation that leaked will be inundated with lawsuits from outraged users. Of course, each company does everything possible to prevent such incidents.
On the other hand, the collection of personal data brings the quality of the services offered to a new level. This practice allows a simple user to "surf" the Internet with much greater comfort, helps to separate the "wheat from the chaff" and generally speeds up the search for information.
It is worth noting that the privacy policy of each corporation that collects this or that data about its customers indicates all the information that the user allows to store when confirming the conditions; if such an agreement seems unacceptable, there is always the opportunity to reject the terms of use.
An example of unauthorized access to users' personal information is the case of social network Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg's company experimented with the emotional state of users
In 2014, the company set up an experiment to influence the emotional state of people by filtering positive and negative posts in the feed without notifying its users.
This incident had a negative impact on the image of the corporation itself: the company had to create an internal commission on ethical and legal issues of experiments, and retraining of personnel in this area was also carried out.
In general, we can say that there is nothing in the collection of personal data that could harm the average user: for the most part, this process is carried out to improve the quality of the services provided. So it's too early to talk about "Big Brother".
It is known that the American search engine collects information about users and their actions. But what exactly does Google know about you? How to remove information about yourself and your actions from the Google server? information in our article.
What does Google know about you?
To analyze the collected data, you need to go to this address. According to Google, this information is available only to the owner of the account, about which there is a corresponding inscription on the site.
For an Android mobile phone, the list of recorded user actions is impressive. Everything is taken into account: from watching YouTube videos to opening applications.
Go to More activities on Google and select Location History (manage history hyperlink) .
Here are collected all your movements around the world over the past few years.
How to Delete Google User Statistics
From the menu on the left, select Choose an uninstall option.
Select the period and criteria for selecting the actions to be deleted and click the Delete button.
How dangerous is Google tracking?
It is clear that when using the services of any company, you trust it to collect certain data about yourself. If you don't want the pages you visit to be recorded, use secure browsers or Incognito mode. On the phone, you can additionally disable the collection of information about movement.
It is worth seeing what the American service knows about you in order to understand the importance of ensuring the security of your account. If you have a simple password, change it to a more complex one. Take safety more seriously. But if anything, now we know where you can erase all the accumulated information.
The practical benefit of such surveillance is the ability to control your child's account, if there is access to it. You can see what videos he watches, what sites he goes to. At the same time, there is no serious violation of the privacy of the correspondence. Google will record that you used the VKontakte application, but will not be able to read the messages.
