You have surely been warned by Google that they are reviewing their privacy policy: in fact, they have decided to “simplify” the plethora of privacy policy they have set up into one single policy. Learn how to clear Google history.
Who can access that personal information?
According to the new policy,
We restrict access to personal information to Google employees, contractors and agents who need to know that information in order to process it on our behalf. These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations …
Can you give me your two cents on who those contractors and agents are? No clue?
So this is my two cents on this. Do you remember my article stating “Google is putting a price on your privacy?”. This means that there’s an actual need for Google to know how you surf the web. But there are other things that Google is already storing on your behalf: the searches you made as well as the links you’ve clicked after performing a search, the videos you watched on youtube (I just browsed my youtube account, and gosh, I’ve seen a lot of massage videos 🙂
Who’s the winner of this new policy?
Google is definitely a winner since they can provide a better user experience. But there’s also a fine line when it comes to “third parties” (agents?) who can access that information. Can you imagine how valuable private information can be for advertisers? For once, imagine that you are a massage therapist who wants to have your ads displayed to people who are interested in massage. They would be interested in my profile since they would have known that I watched a lot of massage videos on youtube.
So here’s how to clear Google history
Remember, I’m not talking about the history that your browser is keeping. I’m talking about the history that Google keeps on its servers about whatever you did on the internet that is Google-related: searches, videos you watched and so on and so forth.
For Google search history:
1. Log into your Google account.
2. Head to the address of the Web History: https://www.google.com/history.
3. Click “delete all web history”.
4. Confirm with OK.
For Youtube history:
1. Connect with your account on Youtube.
2. Click on your top right profile picture, top right.
3. Click Manage videos.
4. Choose from the left column “History” and then click Clear Google History.
5. Do the same for historical research, the menu located just below the “History”.
To sum-up
As I once told in one of my articles, there’s nothing wrong with this new privacy Google has set up (from my point of view). They have taken different measures to warn Google users that they’re changing their policy well ahead of time. We all know that Google is storing some information at different levels (google account, Youtube, …) – they even invite you to have a Google Chrome account.
The goal is clearly mentioned: they want to give you a tailored user experience. The only thing that should matter is: as a user, are you aware of the things that are tracked about you? It’s really up to you. As for me, I’ve just removed my search and Youtube history.