To avoid getting tracked through your phone, you need to turn off location data. But did you know that even after disabling Location Services, Google can collect and save data using Google Maps, browser searches and weather updates?
So, what exactly happens after disabling Location History? When you turn off Location History, Google can’t add activities to Timeline feature. So, tricking Google in not collecting data is a quite tedious task.
So, are you aware of a method to deactivate or turn off Location data History from being recorded when using Google products? As per various studies, Google’s user controls are not clear.
Each of the Google app has an option to turn off location data from collecting and saving data. You can see all activities, such as search history, ad settings and more on My Activity Page.
How To Control Location Data?
If you want to make changes to your location settings, you can navigate to Activity Controls on your browser. Every Google app comes with an option to deactivate tracking and saving location data. You can view your data including search history, ad settings and more on Activity Page.
To adjust location tracking setting, you have to go to activity controls on desktop or browser on your smartphone. There will plenty of options of activity tracking. Locate “Location History” and prevent Google from remembering where you go and what to do on the internet.
However, this is not it! As per category and description, it is quite comprehensible that this tab is ultimate way to protect your location data. According to Google’s support page, if your location services are off, then it will not follow you to the websites you browse.
However, these settings will only prevent Google from adding location activity to visual timeline of interactions with its services. To prevent the search engine giant from pinpointing the snapshots of your location while using various app, you have to pause “Web & App Activity” Settings.
Don’t get confused by the look of Web & App Activity, it is not just about personalizing search results but also about controlling accumulation of location data related to searches could be probably used to target advertising.
If you are concerned to erase all the instances of location marker or if you want to delete the whole history stored by Google on your activity here. All you need to do is go to My Activity page and choose “Delete activity by”.
Google seems to be allowing us to turn off Location History, however is it actually not tracking us after disabling Location data settings? Google has n number of reasons to track your location data, one of them is to provide better experience while surfing internet via Google.
It provides clear choices on My Activity Page such as Web & App History, Location Services and gives control to delete history.
Isn’t It Too Easy?
Google provides a bunch of settings, controls, privacy policies, terms of service for its products, which is aimed to confusing. Regardless of the device you are on, Google provides you different options to protect your privacy but certainly makes its way to collect data in one way or another.
Let’s say you disable Location History, Google still manages to track your location when you use Google for driving directions, or perform Google search.
Google representative said, “Location History is a Google product that is entirely opt-in, and users have the controls to edit, delete, or turn it off at any time. As the story notes, we make sure Location History users know that when they disable the product, we continue to use location to improve the Google experience when they do things like perform a Google search or use Google for driving directions.”
Well, this is not some revelation that was found after a lot of researches, it was rather a fact hidden in plain sight if you take a good look at it. So turning off location data doesn’t help you to that extent.