Since the advent of the digital age, much has been said about the information about users that large companies keep. Privacy has become a luxury within the reach of no one, and that is why many users are beginning to take it very seriously.
At this point, you are surely wondering what is the real reason for companies like or (to name the current giants) to keep all that information. This is none other than using all that data related to you, and millions of other users, to offer you advertising according to your tastes.
There are very different opinions, from people who criminalize it to those who don’t care, or even who see it as something positive. But, in the end, what is really important is to be aware of the information about ourselves that others have about us on the Internet, and this is where this article comes in. we expose Google My Activity.
What is Google My Activity and how does this Google app work?
Google My Activity is a Google tool with which the giant wants to commit to fighting for our privacy. In theory, with it it gives us a simple way to access the information that the corporation knows about us and manage it ourselves, being able to delete it at any time and “completely”.
Google MA is really easy to use. It has a side menu where we will find all the available functions that we will list and describe:
- grouped view. View the activity grouped by activity types (Youtube, Music, Google, Google Play, Outlook, Internet, etc). In this way, you are given access and navigation information to the same site at different times. Each piece of information has a right button from which we can access the details or directly delete the element.
- Item View. Shows the activity without grouping. What it does is show us what we have been seeing in chronological order, just as the typical browser history shows us. Of course, and as in the previous case, it goes further and we have the option of discovering the details of each movement we have made, such as the time, the search engine and the operating system from which the search was made, etc.
- Delete activity by. It offers us a menu with which we can customize the deletion of our activity based on different periods of time that the application offers us and that we will see in depth later.
- Other Google Activity. You will be able to view and manage other types of activity (Youtube history, location history, Youtube comments, survey responses, Likes, purchases made…).
- Controls of your account activity. From this section we can manage all the information that Google stores about us. Something very useful to avoid having to go to Google MA every time. That is, a configuration section on what we want to be saved and what not. We have several sections that we can simply enable or not and, within them, many have more complex settings that we can customize.
- Google account. It takes us to our Google account, with its corresponding URL, that is, it takes us out of Google My Activity.
- Aid. Section where we can obtain information to guide us through the options of Google MA.
- Post comments. It gives us the possibility of sending a comment to Google so that they can improve the platform or to alert of a problem or irregularity, including screenshots.
In addition to all these options in the side menu, Google My Activity has a search engine (on its main page, in the interface) with different filters with which we can search our activity. We can filter using dates and, in addition, by Google products. For example, we can filter our activity from the last 7 days or see what we did the night before.
What is Google MA used for? Features and Benefits
From the first moment we access this tool, we will realize that Google saves all our searches and that, in addition, it stores our activity carried out on Android if we have an account associated with the phone. But don’t worry, there’s no need to be alarmed, because thanks to this tool we can delete all the information we want.
So what is Google My Activity used for? Well, Google does it for have well organized and better collection of our consumer information from and from your productsfrom whether we use your search engine to the programs or platforms that, after all, are yours, such as YouTube.
It does so that the user is aware and has greater control of said information? Did we really get this? When we erase something from what is present, does it really disappear from the reach of the great empire? Without a doubt, and even if they sell it to you like this, no one can guarantee that their information has disappeared from the face of the earth.
What we can, of course, is give it other uses. By having full access to the information we can clear up doubts about, for example, if we watched a video from the phone or from the computer, if our suspicions that a relative is using our computer to consult private items are true, if queries have been made without our permission or even to know the degree of use that we give to a particular application.
Tips for using Google My Activity and getting the most out of the tool
Next we are going to give you a series of tips to use this great online tool and take advantage of all its benefits. Since we have such control over our activity, unless we are able to get as much juice out of it as possible:
How to delete our activity
We will have several options to delete our information: delete a specific activity, last hour, last day, a specific day, forever or a custom period.
To delete a particular activity it will be as simple as:
- Click on the 3 points to the side of our activity.
- Then click on “Remove”.
- A box will appear to make sure if we really want to delete it and you will be warned that this information will not be linked to you. From the lower buttons, click on “Remove” and ready.
To delete the activity of a specific day we can do it:
- clicking on the cube icon of garbage that is next to the day in question and that appears in the “Items View” mode.
- Again, a confirmation window will appear in which we must accept by clicking on “Remove”.
If we click on the left tab “Delete activity by” located in the menu we can see the rest of the options to eliminate our activity, being much more complete. By clicking on one of these options we can see the activity that is going to be deleted before finally confirming its deletion.
It is important to remember that it is not possible to recover the information that has been deleted, since there is no recycle bin feature or something similar where you can permanently delete the activity or recover it. Therefore, we must be sure before deleting the activity in question.
activity in detail
Before deleting the activity it is important to review it. From the detail (option “Detail”) we will be able to see the additional information that Google stores and that can be very varied and give us more data than, a priori, we would think of.
For example, the device or system from which the activity was performed, as we have already mentioned before. This button is below any activity.
Good privacy management
A cautious man is worth two, and it is that, although it is very important to make sure that we delete the activity that Google has from us, it is even more important to prevent it from storing it first if we do not want it to be like that. From the section “Controls of your account activity” from the side menu we can configure what information will be stored on the servers of the most important search engine in the world.
Web and app activity, location history, and YouTube searches These are some of the options that we can configure from this section although, of course, the best thing you can do is tinker around yourself.
Other activities
It is vitally important to review, not only Google searches, but also other types of activities, such as location history (perhaps the most important activity that Google stores from us). From the section “Other Google Activity” We will be able to review this type of data and be careful because there are really juicy things that it would not even occur to us that they were registered anywhere.
You have information about calls and messages, being able to go to Google Voice and Google Fisee your news preferences, manage your purchases and reservations if you have made them with your Google account, that is, Gmail, see your subscriptions to podcasts, the responses to surveys you have made, see the price monitoring of products, the routines that you have implemented with the Google assistant.
Finally, we talk about an authentic barbarity of data that, in one way or another, is related to us and to Google and that, of course, they have no doubt in saving. Dedicate as much time as you need so that only management, by the corporation, of the information you want, and nothing more.
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