Google is known for surveillance and collecting a lot of users’ data, recently it faced a law-suit for tracking users activity on incognito mode (private search on Chrome browser). Google unveiled its new privacy policies, giving its users more control over managing their privacy.
Company’s CEO Sundar Pichai announced several privacy policy improvements to help its users control the data they are sharing with the company.
“As we design our products, we focus on three important principles: keeping your information safe, treating it responsibly, and putting you in control,” said Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, in Blog Post.
Last year the Company introduced auto-delete controls which gave users the option to automatically delete their location history, search, voice, and YouTube activity data after 18 months. This feature will be now enabled for new users by default.
“We don’t sell your information to anyone, and we don’t use information in apps where you primarily store personal content—such as Gmail, Drive, Calendar, and Photos—for advertising purposes,” added Pichai.
Now auto delete location history option will be set for 18months by default. The user doesn’t have to delete his data manually anymore from Google. YouTube history will be deleted after three years to ensure it can make use of the data to show relevant entertainment.
The Company needs fresh user data for its ad network business. Tracking the data helps the company to suggest relevant ads to the users and get high clicks, as the Google Ads platform is the biggest revenue for the company. In 2019, the Company earned 134.81 billion US dollars through ads.
Though recent data is significant to Google for creating targeted ads, it is still a good decision by the company to delete the old data of the user.
Accessing key Google account controls will now be easy. Users would be able to easily search for things like ‘Google Privacy Checkup’ and ‘is my Google Account secure.’ These options will then show a pop-up box (only visible to the user) displaying privacy and security settings for the user to review and adjust them.
Google incognito mode is famous and trusted by many as a safe way of browsing with privacy. However, a recent law-suit of $5 billion was filed against Google, claiming the company tracking its users’ activity even in the private mode.
Now the incognito mode can be accessed by long-pressing the profile picture in Search, Maps, and YouTube. This feature will now be readily available on Google iOS, and soon will be available for Android and other apps.
The company revealed that it is working to introduce incognito mode on other apps like Google Maps and Youtube, the details will be shared soon. Proactive recommendations include guided tips for users to manage their privacy settings.