With most of the smartphone apps now require location services to give you personalised experiences, and unless you are particularly careful of what apps should use your location, Google keeps a detailed record of location history and maintains a log of websites you visit in Chrome browser. The search giant today announced auto-delete controls that automatically deletes your location history, web activity by setting a time limit for how long Google can save this information.
Here is how this will work:
Google will now let you choose among two options 3 or 18 months. And any data older than this time limit will be automatically deleted. While Google will still be able to send you recommendations, however, the use of your personal information stored on Google’s server data will now be limited.
These controls are coming first to Location History and Web and App Activity and will be roll out globally in the coming weeks. The controls will work on your Google Chrome web browsing history, notification history from Google’s Discover feature on Android, locations you searched for in Google Maps, apps you used and more.
While it seems a good step from Google to give people more control over their data, there is still huge data in your Google Account, which isn’t included in this auto-delete service. For instance, your voice and audio activity, as well as your YouTube search and watch history. Over the coming years, we expect Google to add this information to the list of auto-deleting items.
In February, Google announced two new updates -- Password Checkup and Cross Point Account protection. While former is a Chrome extension to help protect your account from third party data breaches, the latter will help users by sending information about security events—like an account hijacking, for instance.
