It can be hard to wrap our minds around all of the personal data floating around the Internet. Though using services like Google Search and Maps may be free, we certainly pay for them with something other than currency: our personal information, including our location, our familial status, our search history, and, in some cases, our biometric data – or, what our faces look like.
Though Google and other Big Data companies vow to use our data only to make using their services easier and more relevant, it’s completely understandable if you do not feel comfortable handing over all this personal data to your favorite search engine. After all, online hacking spiked during the pandemic, with double the number of complaints than in 2019. Protect yourself and your data with these steps for locating and deleting all of your Google history.
Step 1: Sign in and view your activity.
Log in to the Google account you’d like to scrub data from. Once logged in, search for “Google My Activity” in the search bar. Click on the result titled “My Google Activity.” Once you’re there, you can scroll down and see your Internet history across all devices you use Chrome or other Google apps.
Step 2: Pause tracking.
Fortunately, pausing tracking is an easy process. Simply navigate to the sidebar on the “My Google Activity” page and select “Activity Controls.” From there, you’ll be taken to a page that explains exactly what information Google is tracking. Click the blue slider icon next to “Web & App Activity” to disable tracking. Then, select “Pause.”
Step 3: Delete activity.
If you want to delete prior activity, go back to your Google “My Activity” page, select the menu icon (three vertical dots) in the right-hand corner next to the “Search your activity” bar, and select “Delete activity by.” From there, you can delete your activity by the last hour, last day, always, or within a custom date range. If you want to delete all history, select “Always,” and make sure every app Google presents in the next window is checked. Confirm that you want all activity deleted, and Google will handle it from there.
The team at Brookstone Park Apartments in Covington, Louisiana finds it important that our residents lead healthy, well-informed lives. By presenting new ideas in our resident blog, we make it easy to stay up-to-date with the latest information on health, wellness, finances, and more.