South Korea fined Google (and Meta) millions of dollars recently for privacy violations. Unfortunately, Google also has a spotty track record at respecting privacy, as seen in the multitude of fines and lawsuits that have been thrown at them all around the world for violating privacy laws and protections. It is their money making business asset, after all. Google does pretty good at the security side of protecting all that heaps of data they collect on your. That’s annoying, and probably worth it for a little more privacy.Īs for Google’s track record at protecting and respecting your privacy, well, it’s a mixed bag. Just beware, you will get notifications that some things might not work right if you change settings. You should absolutely take the time to adjust these privacy settings. Google does collect a ton of data on you, especially if you don't take the time to adjust your privacy settings to lock down just how much info they can gather. We also like that Google does try to communicate with users how they collect and use data in their Safety Center. We do like that people who use Google’s AI voice assistant are now automatically opted out of Google's human review of voice recordings, because that was super creepy. And Google says they won’t use content from your Google Drive, Email, or Photos to personalize ads. I’m sure we’ve all seen ads based on sensitive things about us that felt pretty creepy. Although, Google does say they won’t use things like your sexual orientation, race, and health to show you ads…although we just have to trust them on that. Of course, Google uses your personal information to sell those targeted, personalized ads you see all over the place like in your Gmail, in your favorite Solitaire app, on partner websites, and on YouTube. Google also collects things like your location, information about things near your devices like wi-fi access points and bluetooth enabled devices, people you communicate with, purchase activity, voice and audio information, your favorite songs on Spotify, what things you search for, what things you ask Google, when you turn your lights on if you have smart lights, when you use it to run your robot vacuum, and so much more. So, when you say, “Hey Google, show me the football game," Google might assume you’re a sports fan and recommend you lots of other sports to watch, while also trying to sell you a jersey for the team you watch most.Īnd while Google promises that your voice recordings won’t be used to send you personalized ads, they do say the transcripts of your voice interactions with your Google smart speaker may. What sorts of data does Google collect on you? Google promises that your voice recordings won’t be used to send you personalized ads, but they admit that transcripts of your voice interactions with your Google Assistant to control your Chromecast with Google TV may be used for that purpose. That said, you should be aware Google is a huge ad company that needs lots and lots of your data to sell ads. It’s really unfortunate just how low the bar has gotten when it comes to privacy these days. This is the world we live in now, though, and there are other Big Tech companies doing a worse job than Google at protecting and respecting your privacy (looking at you Meta/Facebook). They are OK, if you consider the fact that they are a ginormous data collecting advertising company that makes billions of dollars off your personal information. “OK, Google.” That’s pretty much exactly how we think Google does when it comes to privacy.
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