{"id":15531,"date":"2020-06-26T00:10:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T21:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/google-continues-to-slowly-give-users-more-control-over-their-own-data\/"},"modified":"2025-03-03T12:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T09:28:09","slug":"google-continues-to-slowly-give-users-more-control-over-their-own-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/google-continues-to-slowly-give-users-more-control-over-their-own-data\/","title":{"rendered":"#Google continues to slowly give users more control over their own data"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The words \u201cGoogle\u201d and \u201cprivacy\u201d don\u2019t exactly go hand in hand. It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t trust Google\u2019s ideas or its ability to deliver. It\u2019s the fact that these announcements often sound better than they are. The worst thing about them is that Google really isn\u2019t ready to embrace the fact that it collects user data and that it sells more expensive ads the more data it has. Google seems afraid to affirm these facts, and Sundar Pichai\u2019s privacy announcement<\/a> is the latest example of that. It\u2019s a long blog post that goes out of its way to avoid any mention of ads, which is how Google makes money. The only time \u201cadvertising\u201d is mentioned comes later in the post, as the CEO makes it clear that personal content isn\u2019t used for advertising purposes, \u201cperiod.\u201d The point of the announcement is to explain new privacy features that should better protect your data while using Google products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, if you\u2019re familiar with the many, many, many privacy issues Google has dealt with in the past, these privacy announcements might sound like reactions to those issues. It doesn\u2019t help that App<\/a>le just announced a slew of new privacy features<\/a> at WWDC 2020, and Pichai\u2019s blog can be perceived as a reaction that as well. We have no way of knowing whether these new features would have been announced at the I\/O 2020 that never was, but Google chose to promote them during Apple\u2019s big WWDC week, not before it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no question that Apple puts enormous pressure on Google when it comes to privacy, and that Google is responsible for some of that pressure. That said, there is an excellent gem in Pichai\u2019s lengthy post \u2014 a privacy feature that\u2019s more daring than anything Google has ever attempted, but it\u2019s not the focus of the announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google explains in the post that you\u2019ll be able to manage your privacy \u201con your own terms,\u201d and one way to do that is to use its products in Incognito mode. Just recently, by the way, Google just ran into a massive issue with Incognito Chrome browsing.<\/a> A lawsuit alleges that Google tracks people who rely on Incognito mode, so this announcement seems to be, yet again, a reaction to recent developments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, Google does plan to make Incognito mode more accessible. All you need to do is long-press your profile picture in Search, Maps, and YouTube<\/a>. It\u2019s available first on iOS and coming soon to Android and other apps. Here\u2019s the best part: \u201cWe\u2019re also working to make it possible to stay in Incognito mode across Google apps, like Maps and YouTube, and will have more to share soon,\u201d Pichai said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want to use every Google app in Incognito mode at all times, you\u2019ll soon be able to switch between them on the same device without having to repeatedly enable the feature. It\u2019s surprising to see Google admit that some people prefer to stay hidden. Either that, or Google just wants to make its Incognito issues go away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I wasn\u2019t clear before, there\u2019s no denying that Google makes some of the best mobile apps<\/a> out there, apps that are must-haves on iPhone and Android. Gmail, YouTube, Maps, and Translate are a few examples. There\u2019s no question that Google should be paid for its work, and it should make money off of its software. But the only way you can pay is by allowing Google to collect your data and serve you ads. Many people don\u2019t mind, but they would probably be less excited about Google\u2019s data collection if they knew that Incognito mode isn\u2019t actually private.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pichai makes it clear that Google isn\u2019t selling your information in the only paragraph that makes mention of advertising (emphasis ours):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As always, we don\u2019t sell your information to anyone, and we don\u2019t use information in apps where you primarily store personal content\u2014such as Gmail, Drive, Calendar and Photos\u2014for advertising purposes, period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Incognito capabilities are just part of Pichai\u2019s announcement. Google will also now set the data auto-delete controls on by default, set to delete your data in 18 months. Why not make auto-delete default to the minimum, which is three months? Well, older data isn\u2019t as valuable as new data, some reports have claimed.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for YouTube, Google will set auto-delete to 36 months for new accounts or if you turn on YouTube History for the first time. \u201cThis improves upon current industry practice and ensures that YouTube can continue to make relevant entertainment recommendations based on what you\u2019ve watched or listened to in the past\u2014like letting you know if your favorite series<\/a> has released another season, or when your favorite artist drops a new album,\u201d Pichai says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The announcement also makes it clear that Location History is off<\/a> by default now. But let\u2019s not forget that it wasn\u2019t very long ago that it was on by default.<\/a> And this recent story<\/a> shows how dangerous location data can be if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Competing on privacy matters Google\u2019s greatest challenge, and there\u2019s no question that Google made vital steps in the right direction in recent years, whether it wanted to or not. But we\u2019re not yet in a place where we can applaud Google\u2019s privacy updates and, at the same time, forget the privacy issues that got us here.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The words \u201cGoogle\u201d and \u201cprivacy\u201d don\u2019t exactly go hand in hand. It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t trust Google\u2019s ideas or its ability to deliver. It\u2019s the fact that these announcements often sound better than they are. The worst thing about them is that Google really isn\u2019t ready to embrace the fact that it collects user…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[70375,71380,26293,27866,138585],"class_list":["post-15531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-cybersecurity","tag-digital-privacy","tag-google","tag-google-continues-to-slowly-give-users-more-control-over-their-own-data","tag-privacy-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}