By now you definitely know that politics is one my major interests in life, however it’s not the only one. Not by a long shot! My first love has always been the Internet. Ever since I was a kid I was always immersed about the digital world, the unlimited power of the internet. Thanks to this passion I spend a lot of my time researching and learning about new technologies. Back in January I wrote a thorough walkthrough of how the international phone calls scam works and it happened to be a very popular article that was shared over 1400 times. This time I decided to write about the data mining of one the worlds most influential firms. Google! We all know that Google stores a lot of information about all of us. However did you have any idea of how much information they really store? Read more to find out!
Most of us have a Google account. It’s either our primary gmail account or else it’s simply an account which we’ve set up to use with our Android phones. This account is mainly the source where all this information is used. In order to find out how much Google knows about you make sure that you’re signed in to your Google account before clicking any of the forthcoming links.
1 – Google knows what interests you the most.
The advertisement which you see in between websites (similar to the ones on this page) are very much relevant to our likes or present search and needs.
To see all your personalised interest (according to Google) click here.
2 – Google Track all your location
Now this is quite scary! Google actually knows how many times you’ve been to the cinema, the supermarket, the hardware store and even to that place you didn’t want to tell your partner. Check this out and have a look. It tells you each time you went, at what time and how long you were there for as well. Here’s how my heat map looks like! Each red dot is wherever my location was tracked. This is only the information of the last 20 months because prior to that Location History wasn’t turned on on my phone.
And this is my heat map in Malta.
3 – Google Assistant saves all your voice searches.
Have you ever used Google Assistant to search through your phone? Google actually saves ALL your searches. You can hear yourself here! This virtual personal assistant was developed by Google to make life more comfortable by by opening apps, search, to set reminders, check emails, Send a message by just giving voice commands & do all your kinds of stuff. Little did we know that Google is actually saving all voice instructions.
4 – Google knows all your friends and their phone numbers too.
Just in case you didn’t knew, anyone that uses Google to save their contacts (don’t we all?) is saving them in the cloud so technically Google knows all your friends, your contacts and their phone numbers. Click here just in case you want to have a look. Be careful before you delete anyone. That is synched with your phone and if you delete an entry there it will be deleted from your phone too. Just in case you want to restore your contacts to an older date please follow this blog here.
5 – Google knows your search history.
Google knows your search history. Not only of this browser but of any other device connected to your account. Click here to see all your search history.
As you can see Google got a lot of information about all of us. Although their main concern for this is to give us a better experience with their products it might still be of concern to anyone that values their privacy. Login here to learn more about what Google holds on you. The good thing is that you can delete most of this information from the same platform. …. or at least that’s what we think!