A few simple steps can be taken to keep Google from painting too accurate a portrait of your online habits.
The changes in effect allow the world’s largest Internet company to collect information about its users across all its products, services and websites and store them in one place. The idea, Google says, is to create a comprehensive portrait of its users so it can offer more personalized services.
“In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience,” the company wrote in a Jan. 24 blog post that announced the changes.
The changes won’t be noticeable immediately, and Google’s websites and services will function like they always have. But privacy advocates (and some European governments) are worried that with the policy changes, Google will know more about who you are, who you talk to, what you watch, where you go, and perhaps most disturbingly — what you like to buy— than any one company should know.
If you are among the hand-wringers, take heart. There are some simple steps you can take to keep Google from painting too accurate a portrait of your online habits.
1. Don’t log in to a Google account when you go online. Google’s privacy changes mostly affect people who have a Google account such as Gmail or Google+. But even if you do have a Google account, you can still use plenty of Google’s services, including YouTube, Search and Maps, without logging in first. The company may still show you targeted ads based on search terms, but at least that wart cream you just bought on CVS.com won’t be linked to you forever.
2. Use another search engine. If you don’t like the fact that Google is keeping tabs on what you are looking for, you can always try another search engine when scouring the Internet for stories on Angelina Jolie and her leg. Even better, you can rotate among a number of search engines so that no one company has a complete picture of what (or who) you like to look for online.
3. Turn off the setting that allows Google to record your search history. Google has made it very simple to pause, edit or remove your search history via http://www.google.com/history. If you clear your search history, your search terms no longer will be associated with your account but still may be associated with your browser for up to 18 months, according to a Google spokeswoman.
4. Take your Google data and head for the hills. In the spirit of “being big without being evil,” Google created the Data Liberation Front, a website that teaches people how to export data from some key Google platforms like Google Docs and Gmail so you can quit Google without leaving all your treasured documents and emails behind.
You can find it by, well, googling Data Liberation Front.