What google knows about you. What Google knows about you: Six useful links. Browsing and search history

Google knows how old you are, what languages ​​you speak, what your interests or hobbies are, where you've been and where you'd like to go. We'll help you figure out where your online privacy begins and ends.

How do they do it

If you do not have such an account, you may have mailbox on gmail. Fear not, the company does not view attached documents. But the topics, headings and what is written "in the body" of the letter are tracked. This is used not only for quick search letters by keywords in the name, but also for other purposes.

By the way, about the search. If you don't have an account and Email on Google, then of the same name search engine you have used for sure. And everything that you entered there, of course, is fixed.

The same applies to users using the browser. All information from the omnibox does not disappear without a trace. "Clean" the browser history you only for yourself.

Add to this Google Analytics, a program that many web developers install in order to keep statistics on visits and user actions.

Check if age, interests, etc. match. You can also prevent the collection of some of your data there. The history of requests and visits is located. You can remove it if you wish.

The history of your movements while using GoogleMaps is contained in .

And the list of all sites and applications in which you registered and authorized through a Google account is contained.

A bit of conspiracy theory

Some researchers believe that there is more to all of this than just gathering marketing data. Google is even called the new "Big Brother" - the one that "watches you."

The reason for such conclusions was the release of Google Glass - an innovative gadget in the form of glasses, which, among other things, can transmit information via the Internet about where you are and with whom.

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In today's indifferent world, no one knows you so well and will not be able to understand you better than your parents, Google! If you have never thought about anonymity on the Internet before, the following information may surprise you, to put it mildly.

It doesn't matter if you use a Google search engine, own an Android smartphone, or process mail on Gmail, your entire life (including your innermost experiences, fears and dreams) is the property of the Internet giant!

Of course, there is a tiny percentage of users that Google knows almost nothing about, and if you are one of them, this article is not for you. A little lower, we will definitely talk about how to maintain the right to privacy on the Internet, if this order of things does not suit you.

How does Google collect information?

In short, you yourself voluntarily (perhaps unconsciously) provide all the information about the personal life of the search corporation. Each company service Search or YouTube), each application ( Google Maps or Play Music) and each device (Android smartphone, Google Home or laptop) transmits certain information to the company's servers.

Do not be naive to believe that Google releases many great products for free, without which it is already hard to imagine modern life. The saying “free cheese is only in a mousetrap” is more than appropriate here. For every company product, you pay with the right to privacy.

The following table will clearly show how and what kind of information the “search engine” receives about you:

Google search	Anything you say can be used against you ever searched on Google will be used for commercial purposes. Google knows all your interests, innermost concerns (search for information about problems in marriage, children or personal life), your fears (search for information about illness or self-doubt) and much more. Each search query is carefully crafted to create your "psychological profile" (below in the article you can find out exactly what Google thinks of you).
Google Maps	Bought an Android smartphone? Excellent! It only takes Google a few days to determine where your home is (with the exact address) and where you work. The company will also know which places you visit (restaurants, shops, parks, etc.), whether you have a car or use public transport, where you like to spend your weekends, where your relatives live.
Chrome browser	All sites that you visit daily will be stored on the company's servers. You can clear your browser history, reset your smartphone to factory settings or reinstall Windows - this will not affect the specified data in any way.
Calendar	Meetings, affairs, plans and goals - all this is available for analysis by the artificial intelligence of the search engine.
Play Books	What books you read indirectly determines the level of your education
Play/YouTube Music	All your musical preferences are analyzed
YouTube	Every video watched, every search query in this service for the entire time of use is securely stored and processed.
Okay Google!	Have you ever tried or entered a query (in search, maps, navigation) with your voice? Each phrase that you said is stored along with an audio recording on the company's servers (below we will give a link where you can listen to all these recordings yourself for any period of time).
News	Google analyzes your political preferences and other interests based on the news you read
Google Photos	The company knows perfectly well how you look, how old you are, whether you wear glasses, what kind of food you prefer and much more by analyzing all the photos you take. Try, for fun, give the command to Google Assistant: " Show pictures of my baby". If you do have a child, it's very likely that all Google Photos photos of your child will be shown!
Google Fit	All data about your physical activity (how much you move, do you play sports and what kind, your weight, amount and quality of sleep) is collected thanks to using Google Fit or other fitness apps connected to the Fit service.
Contacts	Google knows all your contacts, with whom you communicate most often, it tries to determine family ties (in many ways, we indicate them ourselves).
gmail	You can be sure of the confidentiality of correspondence. No one but you, your recipient and Google no longer reads your letters! The "search engine" itself never hid this, explaining that it does this to select more relevant ads. But in 2017, he officially announced that he would no longer read personal letters from users. In the light of the information disclosed by Snowden, it is quite reluctant to believe in this.
Internet	Counters Google Analytics installed on most sites around the world. Wherever you go, information about it is collected by search bots for further processing.

Who are you really according to Google?

How old are you? What sports are you into? Are you interested in luxury goods? Do you like rock or do you listen to classical music? What car brands do you prefer?

By the way, if something listed on this page has nothing to do with you, just click on the corresponding block and turn off the selected interest:

Now Google's idea of ​​you will be even more true to reality.

Where can I see all the information collected about myself?

As mentioned above, Google collects a huge amount of information about each user, from the history of visiting all sites and real places to audio recordings of all voice commands. Next, we will tell you exactly where you can see all this.

Information about all videos viewed on YouTube and all search queries in this service is stored by the company for further analysis:

Internet and smartphone

Here you can see the history of everything you did on your smartphone or on the Internet, namely:

• What kind of music did you listen to
• What sites did you visit
• What games or applications did you run
• What books have you read
• What news did you watch
• What places and cities searched on Google Maps
• What was added to the calendar
• What applications were launched (for example, March 31 on Galaxy smartphone Note 9 at 21:45 the Clash Royal game was launched, then at 22:07 you went to the smartphone desktop, from where you immediately launched the Viber application to send a message)
• And much more…

It seems that keeping such detailed records is simply impossible. But this is true. All of the above information for any period of time can be seen here:

After what I saw, only one question arises - is it generally legal?

If you're not quite surprised by what you see, then listen to the recordings of all your voice searches, conversations with the Google Assistant, or voice directions during GPS navigation:

Where are we, where do we go?

And finally, let's see a detailed report on all our movements (which cities we visited, what places and when we went):

If any of the links we provided does not work for you (or does not give any information), then Google for some reason could not get it from you.

How to erase your identity on the Internet and should you do it at all?

Should I be worried about such a deep awareness of a commercial company about your personal life? Google itself states that all data collected is used solely to make services and applications as user-friendly as possible. Of course, Google does not share your data with third parties.

And, on the one hand, it really makes a lot of sense. You will not see irrelevant ads on the Internet, YouTube will recommend interesting videos, Play Music selects music according to your preferences, and when you search for a product on the Internet, Google will return results with stores in your country. And this is only part of all those advantages, because of which the Internet does not seem to us a huge foreign place.

On the other hand, achieving complete anonymity on the Internet is very difficult (if not impossible). Therefore, depriving yourself of conveniences, defending the right to privacy, you still will not become “invisible”. And is it necessary?

Modern companies earn on the fact that they know a lot about users and, accordingly, about what they can sell. Not all users are happy with the fact that data about their behavior is stored on the servers of some company. Fortunately, it is possible to see what, for example, Google knows about you. A selection of links about what data the largest search engine knows about you was published on the Cloud Fender blog. Some data can even be deleted.

1. Google creates your portrait

Google is trying to create a general "portrait" of the user: age, gender, interests. launch social network Google+ and the integration of her profiles with all the company's services, in theory, should have made this task even easier. This data is used to serve relevant ads. You can check what kind of data this is at the link google.com/ads/preferences.

Here you can change this data or even disable interest-based ads in such Google services like search, Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps.

2. Google is tracking your movements

If you are the lucky owner of an Android smartphone or tablet, Google can track your movements by coordinates. The entire history of your travels and trips can be viewed at maps.google.com/locationhistory. The history of movements can be uploaded as a file. Below is an example of the movements of one of the Reddit users, who has been delivering pizza for a month.

3. Google Tracks What You Search Online

Google saves your search history, as well as data about which ads you clicked on. In the settings at the top right, you can delete entries about the search history for a certain period of time, or delete entries manually. You can view minimal analytics for your search queries, sort them by topic and type (search by words, pictures, etc.). You can explore your favorite sites and queries (based on your search history).

4. Google knows which devices have connected to your accounts

This is a rather useful link security.google.com/settings/security/activity - by clicking on it, you can see a summary of who and from what device connected to your account. Also, there you can check the IP connections, the browser version and, importantly, the location. Here is the connection data for the last month and in this moment. Similar summaries can also be found in individual services"google". For example, at the bottom of Gmail there is a link " Additional Information". It opens a detailed summary of who logged into your account:

5. Apps and add-ons also get access to your data that Google has

You can check which applications and add-ons use this privilege, for example, here security.google.com/settings/security/permissions . The link is useful in that here you can also revoke permissions for third party applications use your data.

6. All data from Google can be exported

This applies to mail data, contacts, calendar, files from Google Drive, photos, bookmarks and more. You can upload them to another site, save them in your archive (if, for example, you decide to delete your Google account). As a result, you will get several zip files. For example, contacts can be exported in vCard format, which is supported by most email clients, including Apple Mail and Microsoft Outlook.

I certainly think that Google knows almost everything about us. Moreover, we have read such a version, but we can see and check something ourselves. Maybe you are aware of this, but still, let me remind you about 6 links by which you can verify the completeness and reliability of the information that Google knows about you ...

So let's go...

1. Your Google profile

2. History of your movements
If you have an Android device, it can send your coordinates and speed to Google. You can view your travel history and output it to a file:

Damn, that was news to me! Oh damn you!

3. Your Google search history
Google may store your search history. In addition, it saves the history of the ads you clicked on. All this is available here:
history.google.com
(approx. transl. - this feature must be enabled in your account)

4. List of devices accessing your account
If you are wondering if someone else is using your account, you can see a list of all devices that have accessed it, their IP addresses and location:
security.google.com/settings/security/activity

6. Google Takeaway
You can export all your data - bookmarks, mail, contacts, calendar, Drive files, youtube videos, photos and more:
www.google.com/takeout

Some researchers believe that there is more to all of this than just gathering marketing data. Google is even called the new "Big Brother" - the one that "watches you." The reason for such conclusions was the release of Google Glass - an innovative gadget in the form of glasses, which, among other things, can transmit information via the Internet about where you are and with whom.

In addition, not so long ago, the corporation acquired Nest Labs, a company specializing in the production of thermostats, an advanced technology for home climate control. These thermostats, as a rule, are part of the Smart Home system and can transmit information to the Internet about whether the user is at home or not. Nest Labs products have become popular in the US and Canada, but recently they are also starting to be sold in Europe and Russia. Proponents of the Google conspiracy theory recommend that users do not use the company's services and switch to alternative browsers and search engines.

» in a visual form represents all the data that the search giant collects about us. With it, you can easily find out what you are looking for on the Internet, what sites you visit, what videos you watch, what music you listen to, where you go and what programs you run on your smartphone. In general, almost any information that you can imagine.

For ease of viewing, there are two display options: in chronological order and in the form of thematic blocks. You can also filter by date or by information type to display only the entries you are interested in.

The My Actions site allows you not only to view the collected information, but also to delete some entries. To do this, you need to find the “Select” item in the menu on the top panel and check the boxes for unnecessary entries. There is also a cleaning function related to a specific day or a specific application.

Yes, of course we all know that Google collects information about us. But when I saw with my own eyes how much this company really knows about me, I felt somehow uneasy.

What are your feelings? Or is everything as usual: “Let them peep, I’m not doing anything wrong”?