Like Goo-Gone for Google…Protect Yourself from Google’s Personal Data Grab

February 29th, 2012. By AbiK

Grippy-grabby Google is about to get a whole lot more up-close and personal beginning in March. That’s when all the convenience their new privacy policy is supposed provide officially kicks in. For many, however, the ‘convenience’ is merely a euphemism for ‘intrusion’ and only reinforces the notion that ‘internet privacy’ is the oxymoron of our age. Googlers can,however, make a change to their Google profiles to help stop the intrusion.

If you’ve seen the “We’re changing our privacy policy” notices all over anything and everything Google, and you’ve clicked “Learn more” you’ve seen that the new policy reflects Google’s “desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google”. (Red flag word = ‘intuitive’—ain’t nothing technologically intuitive out there that hasn’t first had some data input to create that intuition; in this instance, it’s Google trawling your every click and collecting the breadcrumbs you’ve dropped along the way).

So for those of you who don’t want the convenience of Google presenting you with intuitively targeted ads on your Google search screens based on your activity on Google’s entire suite of products—like what videos you viewed on YouTube or what you clicked with Google Plus—well, now’s the time to delete your Google web history—and press the proverbial ‘pause’ button on Google’s ability to continue to store your web history. Think of it as Goo Gone®* for Google.

Here’s how to Delete your Google Web History and Protect your Privacy:

1. Sign into your Google account.

2. Type the following URL into your browser bar: https://google.com/history and hit Enter (or Return)

3. Click “Remove All Web History”

That’s it—simply by doing that, you will also stop Google from collecting your web history, until such a time if and when you feel the need for Google to do so again.

Needless to say, this won’t protect you from all things Google—but it sure is a step in right direction when it comes to internet privacy.

*This is not an endorsement of Goo Gone by LawyersandSettlements.com, however, the author does keep Goo Gone on hand to get out of sticky situations.

Tags: Google Ads, Google privacy, Google Web History, Internet Privacy, Online Privacy

This was posted on Wednesday, February 29th, 2012 at 8:59 am and is filed under Emerging Issues, Internet/E-commerce . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.