We’ve all wondered what people think of us. Do you find our jokes funny? Are our stories fascinating or unbearably presumptuous? The truth is, we may never know. However, as a consolation prize, we can all find out exactly what Google thinks of us without potentially awkward conversations.
It is a well-known fact that the technology company monitors your browsing habits to draw an image and then uses this portrait to show you ads that may interest you while searching the web, watching videos on YouTube, or finding your way. house. Google Maps. What is not known, however, is how easy it is for you to view this profile and disable some or all of the company’s data collection processes.
Decide how much you care
Google data collection is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, personalized ads mean you don’t have to see banners and videos promoting products that you find boring or useless and that you would never buy. For example, unless you’re a parent and interested in having children, you wouldn’t see ads promoting strollers and diapers. On the other hand, personalized ads work as targeted campaigns designed to attract and consume you as much as possible: the more you spend, the more money Google and other advertisers make.
[Related: How to protect your smartphone privacy]
You may like the convenience of a great tech company that knows your ways, but if you want to regain some privacy, take a minute to tell Google what it can and can’t know about you.
Find out what Google knows about you
Start by logging in directly to your Google Account. On one of the company’s services websites, click or tap your avatar, usually at the top right of the screen, and go to Manage your Google Account. Once there, select your data privacy, scroll down, and under Ad Settings, go to Ad Customization.
By default, you’ll see the toggle switch on for personalized advertising, which means that Google uses your data to refine the range of ads you see on its services. But before you touch the switch to turn it off completely, feel free to scroll down and take a look at the categories that the capital G used to describe you and the accuracy they have.
The first big ones are age, gender, and language. Tap or click any of these if you want to update or manage it. The last of these three descriptors allows you to add the languages you speak or turn off the feature to prevent Google from automatically adding more languages in the future based on what you read or write. As you get older, the platform will ask you to enter your birthday if you haven’t already. However, if the company already has this information, there is no way to delete it, but you can add it.
[Related: The government won’t protect your internet privacy, so here’s how to do it yourself]
The following categories are the interests that the platform believes you have, including the types of news that interest you and the sports, movies, and hobbies that you enjoy. Don’t expect them to be very accurate or say a lot about you. Google can be wrong about many of these, and they can be so random that they are fun. For example, according to Google, I am a man interested in football, classical music and martial arts. Well, as a woman who firmly believes that football is football, she can’t distinguish Bach from Mozart and has no idea what MMA means, I find all this so funny.
If you’d prefer Google to be confused about what really interests you, you may want to leave them as they are. However, if you want to correct this information, you can completely deactivate your interests by clicking and selecting Disable. You do not have the option to edit them. If you want to turn everything off en masse, you can scroll up and turn off the switch next to Ad Customization.
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