Google Will Soon Let Users Automatically Scrub Location and Web History

This is welcomed, but they might do better to remove the requirement to have the Web/Location/App history enabled for apparently unrelated features.

E.g. I cant store my home location in Google Maps without turning on Web & App activity history. Why? I cant share my current location (not historic, just my latest location - they only need to store one) with my partner unless I turn on Web and Location history. Why?

I am sure a lot of people will now pipe-up and say "Ah well they want your data! That is why!". Kthx bai for that - I get it.

It strikes me as this being a "nudge" more than anything, or perhaps just a cut-corner to get a feature enabled rather than support something custom (e.g. in the case of my current location vs location history, it was probably easier for them to build something that just picks the most-recent record off of the top of your location history rather than create something new for only storing the most recent ping independently from location history along with all the privacy controls, legal reviews, documentation, and UI fiddly bits that go along with supporting something new)

The funny thing is that Google will still let you store your home address and they'll display it on the map, but if you have Location History turned off they'll refuse to list it as an autocomplete option when you search for addresses or directions. They know what it is, but they won't let you actually use it unless you expose everything else. It's extremely user hostile and there's no good reason to do it.

Edit: To clearly demonstrate what I'm talking about: https://imgur.com/a/QW9OxAS

They pin your saved locations to the top of the UI. If I click "Home" it will take me to my exact address. However, if I attempt to search "Home" in the search bar I get

"Turn on your Web & App Activity setting to search for 'home' and other personal places"

No thanks, Google. You don't need to know my entire location history 24/7 to take me to a static address you already have saved.

So does this actually delete it ... for Google?

Deleting it from say my browser, maps, or other history is one thing. Does Google no longer have any of it?

Also the top and bottom bars that leave me with like 1/3 usable space on google's blog is really frustrating to read on: https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/automatically...

Will they also untrain the machine learning model that they've fed all of this data into to predict exactly what kind of ads are most likely to get you to spend money? How about slurping up data for users who don't have an account but send a ping to google on every goddamn page on the internet?

Will that remove the history from Google's Sensorvault?[0] Because if not, this is just theater.

[0]https://www.eff.org/es/deeplinks/2019/04/googles-sensorvault...

One thing that I find very interesting in the comments is people's approach to Google services. It's no secret that Google makes money from ads and models based on the user usage on their free services.

A lot of people are complaining that if they disable data collection, try their hardest to not contribute to these data models and block the ads with ad blocker then some feature doesn't work for them. So you just want to use Google services completely for free without contributing anything.

Other people complain about permissions that Assistant or other products require. There's always a very good reason why these permissions are required that is not monetary. Each permission request goes through a lot of scrutiny, lawyers reviews, product reviews, approvals, etc. You can ask why disabling some permissions affects features that shouldn't need it. Sometimes it is lawyers fault, sometimes it's just engineers not supporting properly each of 2^{number of permissions} permission combinations.

I'll be happy when they let me use their products like Google assistant without collecting all this info in the first place. Even a degraded experience would be fine. Why does assistant need to know where I was last week or what I searched for to answer simplistic questions?

TBH I dont mind Google knowing all this stuff about me. I like targeted ads. What I dont like is the idea that someone could steal that information from them and use it against me. Soak up as much info as you want from me Google, idc but if you're going to do that than you better damn well be able to keep it protected.

I see this(others recent Gmail changes) as tactical measures that google is taking to save its image in light of steep growth of privacy friendly startups(proton mail, duckduckgo, etc.). But my take is that they aren't going to get too war with this until they really commit themselves to preserving users privacy. Unfortunately, likelyhood of this change in thinking of Google executives is very low as its an up hill battle against the revenue they earn selling users data.

Doesn't Google keep track of web history through IP/browser fingerprinting even if you don't use an account? And when asked about it they give vague answers about what information is being kept and for how long. That's why I switched to using DuckDuckGo for most of my searches.

This is huge, and exactly what I want from these kinds of services -- a set "age out" policy where I can specify how long my data is retained before being deleted.

If FB let me clean out all my posts/comments/activity from everything older than a year I might actually start using it again.

Google should know that they have very little credit left on my side. When I read the this article, I immediately think about the ways on how they can still keep tracking me.

- Check the latest user status after 3 months before deleting user history.

- Compare it with the previous 3 months and update the difference ona separate table that are not facing the end user.

- Scrub location and web history from user facing database.

It saddens me now that all google apps on my mobile phone are no longer allowed to access nothing. I try to only grant access if i really need to. This is how it became unfortunately.

Why is the minimum lifetime of data set to 3 months? Is it because 3 months sounds like a reasonable period of time for users to look back at their usage or is it because Google needs 3 months to process the data, for marketing or other money making purposes?

The reality is whether they keep the data for 3 months or 18 months doesn't mean anything. It just gives you the illusion that they no longer use your data. I find it hard to believe there's good intentions behind this (other than deleting data AFTER it's used).

Dup: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19804232

I'm happy to just leave both settings off entirely. I actually do have some historical location data still stored there, they know where I was a number of years ago.

I almost wonder if leaving it there has a positive effect, as my life has changed, the locations I go have changed, the products and services I use and the stores I patronize have changed, and Google is left with a version of me that is no longer accurate.

This is actually worst for your privacy because it gives you an impression that your data is not being used. However, by the time that you remove it Google is already done with your data. I feel this will spread to other type of data that they are collecting too. I cannot convince myself that it’s a good thing and Google has good intentions with it.

> Scrubbing this data from your Google account...

What about those of us without Google accounts? I use pretty aggressive tracker blocking, but wouldn't be surprised if a PREF cookie, ETag, browser fingerprint, or some other tracking mechanism snuck through at some point. My parents don't use any Google services other than search (not logged in), but Google likely has most of their web browsing histories going back years, thanks to ads and analytics.

If I delete my Google cookies, will Google delete my history and not try to re-identify me? It seems like "privacy theater" otherwise.

What's the over/under on how long before this feature 'accidentally' breaks? I'd bet even money on it 'malfunctioning' in less than 1 year.

Just like so many of the privacy features put out by FANG companies, which mysteriously undo themselves upon update roll outs. Funny how I've never seen those roll outs cause the privacy features to automatically turn on, only off.

Still better than nothing, I appreciate the option, but I can't help but being VERY skeptical about this.

The article doesn’t mention Google collecting and storing location information even when it’s turned off, and having the users figure out more convoluted ways to get rid of that tracking. Scrubbing this information periodically is not a substitute for not collecting or storing it in the first place. Whenever that’s done, I’ll probably accept that Google is doing something for privacy.

This feature looks pretty cool and it’s basically what I wanted. Kudos.

The question is, are they deleting that data?

I think they are big enough that, at least for EU users, not deleting that data would land them in a lot of trouble, so I think that they do.

For people concerned with privacy I don’t think Google is trustworthy enough, but these features are good to have for the rest of the world, so I’m glad to see it.

There's a hint of hubris in this move, the way I see it. Google must have enough confidence in the interferential power of the data they've accumulated that they can now wash their hands of anti-privacy dark patterns and declare themselves pure. It's a huge PR win without having to commit to deep changes in their (primary) business model.

Living outside US jurisdiction, I strongly believe, my data will end up in the hands of the interested party, specially when/if I am targeted, no matter what setting I choose. I rather get some services running smoothly in my devices when I have these settings (i.e. historical data) enabled. So, I prefer keeping these enabled.

Is there an open source replacement for Google Maps timeline that doesn't destroy battery life?

I know how bad it is privacy wise but I get so much utility of being able to see all the places I have been on a map, it's so wonderful after travelling or for finding places in my hometown I haven't yet been to.

On a web forum for programmers on a website known for funding startups there are numerous discussions about Google being inconvenient about privacy and some of them are thinking about buying Apple products. As opposed to rooting their smartphone and using MicroG.

It would have been fairer to let the users decide how many days precisely they want to keep history, and let everyone find their sweet spots.

And, sure, it's deleted from Google. Is it also deleted from ads networks after Google shared the data with them? I doubt about it.

Too little, too late. The average person is beginning to hate you as much as the tech savvy people, Google, and there's no one to blame but your greedy elitist self!

By the way, I deleted my entire history two weeks ago, and since then I didn't notice any downsides yet, such as a deterioration of my "search experience".

Offering this should be a legal requirement for any company collecting tracking data, IMO. I might even re-enable my YouTube and Search history when they roll this out.

But only if you have a google account. If you don't have a google account, there's no way to request your shadow profile get scrubbed. As usual.

We will do something approaching the right thing... soon!

I don't want to send my location to google in the first place. Is there a way to do that on Android without disabling Location Services entirely?

Google builds a profile for each user.

Even when the data is deleted, I assume the profile stays (as far as I can tell from the meager writing so far), and can continue to be developed with further info, even if all the old info has been deleted.

At the end of the day, the profile is more important than the data that was used to build the profile, so its great for Google - and it doesn't help me that much that my data was deleted.

In addition, Google could save in that profile all sorts of useful metadata (how many emails, from what range of countries, etc.) that might someday be useful.

Other commenters have stated that Google's algorithm currently rebuilds the profile when any data has changed. Obviously this will have been fixed (...to include the fact that the user wants deletion in the profile) before this feature gets rolled out.

1. Only a tiny percentage of users will use this, so the benefits in a legal sense are big compared to the loss.

2. The only loss is that future development will have been able to squeeze more from that info, and the metadata is enough to offset most of that risk.

Why just not stop collecting it?

Great, another thing they deprecate, my own history. /s

Only do that if you don't want to know what Google knows about you (because they will keep your history and don't mind hiding it from you).

can we export our location history?

Thank you European Union

google will soon let you think you can scrub your personal info.

uh huh

I personally don't believe them. I have an android phone but no Google login. I don't even want to begin to try and work out how to get them to scrub my anything. I've asked them for a copy of all my data based on phone number under GDPR. I've also instructed them to delete what they have about me. Obviously very interested to see how it works out.

Whenever I want to send an email through gmail in my phone, it doesn't suggest senders unless I give them permission to access my phone contacts. Does anybody know a way around this?

Ya ok, call me a cynic, but I doubt it amounts to anything more than a new column in their tables. It’s gonna all be there - there’s too much money on the line to permanently erase anything

Honestly, people have to be fools to think this is anything more than a feel-good placebo. Google is only doing this because public sentiment is starting to grow restless regarding data privacy. But given the pitiful, embarrassing grasp (judging by the Facebook/Google hearings) Congress has on the issue, I guarantee there will be no kind of followup to ensure Google actually deletes the data as they say they will. And honestly, why would they actually implement the feature? Who's going to hold them accountable? Won't be the federal government, they're a wet sock. Won't be shareholders, it's actually against their interest to provide data deletion. Won't be the media, they'll move onto another news narrative soon enough.