They know everything...
June 30, 2016 11:05 AM Subscribe
You can see everything associated with your Google account that the company is tracking. Going to My Activities will let you see and delete everything from the YouTube videos you watch to the voice commands you have used in Android. Similar company-provided tools exist for Facebook and Amazon. If you want to go one step further, Just Delete Me helps you remove your accounts from many popular services.
I know I'm supposed to be alarmed about all the surveillance capitalism and such but really looking at that timeline my main takeaway is I have wasted my life.
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:13 AM on June 30, 2016 [39 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:13 AM on June 30, 2016 [39 favorites]
Hey, it's Red Hot Nickel Ball!
posted by thelonius at 11:15 AM on June 30, 2016 [15 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 11:15 AM on June 30, 2016 [15 favorites]
Google, being hte brilliant genius organization that it is, has kept my profile blocked since the nym wars. What records, you blithering morons?
posted by infini at 11:18 AM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by infini at 11:18 AM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
One time I opened up the YouTube app and the top suggested videos were a bloody fistfight and a line of black girls booty clapping. Seeing my predilictions distilled like that was deeply troubling to me and I had to delete my entire viewing history.
posted by gngstrMNKY at 11:19 AM on June 30, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by gngstrMNKY at 11:19 AM on June 30, 2016 [7 favorites]
jeez, I watch a lot of porn
posted by AFABulous at 11:23 AM on June 30, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by AFABulous at 11:23 AM on June 30, 2016 [8 favorites]
My phone has a built-in facility that shows the clock, weather alerts, partial recent texts, etc., when someone picks it up, without unlocking or waking it. And apparently that facility sends some kind of recordable notification to Google.
Every time I pick up the phone, even if I don't use it, Google literally has a record of the time and place.
posted by Western Infidels at 11:26 AM on June 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
Every time I pick up the phone, even if I don't use it, Google literally has a record of the time and place.
posted by Western Infidels at 11:26 AM on June 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
You have to pick a bunch of individual items
myactivity.google.com/delete-activity
Select "all time" and that should do it.
posted by phunniemee at 11:26 AM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
myactivity.google.com/delete-activity
Select "all time" and that should do it.
posted by phunniemee at 11:26 AM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
Apparently my life consists of googling for planning documents and watching the Great British Bake Off.
... this is not entirely inaccurate.
posted by suelac at 11:27 AM on June 30, 2016 [6 favorites]
... this is not entirely inaccurate.
posted by suelac at 11:27 AM on June 30, 2016 [6 favorites]
I guess when I set up my Google Apps account for my various domains, I locked things down pretty good. This is showing nothing but my YouTube activity.
posted by The Man from Lardfork at 11:34 AM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by The Man from Lardfork at 11:34 AM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
The playback of voice searches is something else. Forgot my 10-year-old daughter picks up my phone to do voice searches a lot when I'm not around.
(In adorable 10-year-old voice) "OK Google pictures of pangolin babies"
pangolin babies!
Love that girl.
posted by mcstayinskool at 11:35 AM on June 30, 2016 [26 favorites]
(In adorable 10-year-old voice) "OK Google pictures of pangolin babies"
pangolin babies!
Love that girl.
posted by mcstayinskool at 11:35 AM on June 30, 2016 [26 favorites]
"Watched Tiny Kitten Found In The Street Will Never Be Alone Again"
When you hear THIS:
*TAP*TAP*TAP*
That means I'm WORKING!
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:48 AM on June 30, 2016
When you hear THIS:
*TAP*TAP*TAP*
That means I'm WORKING!
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:48 AM on June 30, 2016
I have a puppy and my searches related to caring for him - dealing with teething issues and the like - were under the category "baby." I don't consider myself my puppy's "daddy" or think of him as my fur baby, but My Activities either believes that I am or was coded by someone who thinks that way. Odd.
posted by Blue Meanie at 11:51 AM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Blue Meanie at 11:51 AM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
The playback of voice searches is something else.
Is there a way to just find your voice searches?
posted by straight at 11:52 AM on June 30, 2016
Is there a way to just find your voice searches?
posted by straight at 11:52 AM on June 30, 2016
The big money here is to go to the settings (the pancake stack) on the activity page and select "activity controls." On that page, "pause" anything you don't critically need (which, for me, leaves only the youtube watched videos on and all others off).
Then, go back to the activity search, and click the filter option under the search bar. Select only the items you know you want to forever-nuke, search, then use the search detailed options (the 3 dots) and select "delete results."
posted by mystyk at 11:53 AM on June 30, 2016 [10 favorites]
Then, go back to the activity search, and click the filter option under the search bar. Select only the items you know you want to forever-nuke, search, then use the search detailed options (the 3 dots) and select "delete results."
posted by mystyk at 11:53 AM on June 30, 2016 [10 favorites]
I don't know when I opted out of all these things, but there's nothing in My Activity. Which doesn't sound right, because the YouTube app on the Roku always seems to know that toddlerozzy wants to watch Taylor Swift videos over and over again.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:56 AM on June 30, 2016
posted by uncleozzy at 11:56 AM on June 30, 2016
Mine is nothing but food videos, Hamilton, travel website, and Metafilter.
I guess I'm doing something right.
posted by sprezzy at 11:57 AM on June 30, 2016
I guess I'm doing something right.
posted by sprezzy at 11:57 AM on June 30, 2016
Is there a way to just find your voice searches?
Yes, at the very top there's a "Filter by Date & Product" link. You can select only voice & audio there.
posted by mcstayinskool at 12:02 PM on June 30, 2016
Yes, at the very top there's a "Filter by Date & Product" link. You can select only voice & audio there.
posted by mcstayinskool at 12:02 PM on June 30, 2016
But you have to have a registered Google account to delete your search history in spite of the fact that Google almost assuredly looks for every opportunity to connect your name and address to your IP. Right?
posted by Beholder at 12:10 PM on June 30, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by Beholder at 12:10 PM on June 30, 2016 [6 favorites]
They wouldn't be too smart if they linked IP to name and address – an awful lot of companies run web activity through a proxy, which can make it look like an entire office (or even offices) all have the same IP, when in reality they don't. This is pretty well-known in IT. I own a domain or three and have fun visiting my main website from the various offices I work in to see what kind of IP it throws up in the logs, and it's never accurate-to-reality.
posted by fraula at 12:22 PM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by fraula at 12:22 PM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
Google had nothing but youtube videos, only one from the last year and a half when I accidentally signed in. Amazon had nothing. I'm doing it better than I thought.
Thanks for this, I deleted everything in both places because I don't use them at all, but was still concerned they had more information than they did.
posted by bongo_x at 12:22 PM on June 30, 2016
Thanks for this, I deleted everything in both places because I don't use them at all, but was still concerned they had more information than they did.
posted by bongo_x at 12:22 PM on June 30, 2016
I thought I had previously told Google not to save any of my history...yet there were YouTube videos listed back to the beginning of time. So, yeah, delete all, fine; but what sort of loophole exists (and what other ones still exist that I don't know about), that "Don't save any of my activity" doesn't include YouTube?
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:23 PM on June 30, 2016
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:23 PM on June 30, 2016
Huh. Cat videos in French, the Strumbellas, and 12 hours of ambient Firefly engine sounds. Offer to sell me something that pushes all those buttons and I just might buy.
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 12:41 PM on June 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 12:41 PM on June 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
Greg_Ace: I don't think there isn't a master toggle. You'd have to go through all (currently) six toggles, two of which relate to Youtube.
https://myaccount.google.com/u/0/activitycontrols
It's plausible they didn't have a toggle for Youtube at the time. It might be they added it when they started feeding information e.g. between Youtube and everything else (e.g. I've seen what looks like Youtube suggestions being informed by Gmail keyword scanning). Then presumably you were "supposed" to find the new toggle when Google told you they were bringing down the silo walls.
posted by sourcejedi at 12:48 PM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
https://myaccount.google.com/u/0/activitycontrols
It's plausible they didn't have a toggle for Youtube at the time. It might be they added it when they started feeding information e.g. between Youtube and everything else (e.g. I've seen what looks like Youtube suggestions being informed by Gmail keyword scanning). Then presumably you were "supposed" to find the new toggle when Google told you they were bringing down the silo walls.
posted by sourcejedi at 12:48 PM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
WATCHED: HUSKY PUPPIES 10 DAYS OLD.
Sounds about right.
posted by Justinian at 1:02 PM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
Sounds about right.
posted by Justinian at 1:02 PM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
I don't have anything but (really boring) YouTube videos? Is that because I did something with my settings, or am I somehow not seeing all the really embarrassing stuff?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:08 PM on June 30, 2016
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:08 PM on June 30, 2016
Apparently, I keep forgetting to use my burner Google account.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:16 PM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 1:16 PM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
The one that stunned me is that apparently they store every time I open a program on my android tablet. Not that this information is especially confidential, but I really didn't expect it.
Well that and kobo apparently reports your activity to google too.
posted by Kikujiro's Summer at 1:22 PM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
Well that and kobo apparently reports your activity to google too.
posted by Kikujiro's Summer at 1:22 PM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
These settings used to be under history.google.com/history
I guess the name change is to reflect the fact that they already have your future figured out.
posted by Lanark at 1:28 PM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
I guess the name change is to reflect the fact that they already have your future figured out.
posted by Lanark at 1:28 PM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
Observed behavior in my Google activity:
Desktop, browser A. I log into Gmail in this browser, then log back out again. I never log into YouTube or other Google properties. Searches in google.com are only tracked from this machine if I'm concurrently logged into Gmail. Most searches not tracked.
Desktop, browser B. Never log into Gmail in this browser. Nothing tracked at all, ever.
Android phone. Effectively always logged in to Google services. All google searches tracked, all map searches tracked, all the time.
posted by gimonca at 1:34 PM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
Desktop, browser A. I log into Gmail in this browser, then log back out again. I never log into YouTube or other Google properties. Searches in google.com are only tracked from this machine if I'm concurrently logged into Gmail. Most searches not tracked.
Desktop, browser B. Never log into Gmail in this browser. Nothing tracked at all, ever.
Android phone. Effectively always logged in to Google services. All google searches tracked, all map searches tracked, all the time.
posted by gimonca at 1:34 PM on June 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
YES! So many sad kitten and asshole cat videos? I had no idea.
posted by Peach at 1:45 PM on June 30, 2016
posted by Peach at 1:45 PM on June 30, 2016
When it loaded originally it chose to display the activity for an account I never use instead of my main, and for a brief, shining, beautiful second I thought Google had nothing on me.
posted by brecc at 1:50 PM on June 30, 2016
posted by brecc at 1:50 PM on June 30, 2016
Why did they do this? Does it happen to have anything to do with the European privacy laws/court decisions that I vaguely remember hearing about a couple (?) of years ago?
posted by clawsoon at 2:13 PM on June 30, 2016
posted by clawsoon at 2:13 PM on June 30, 2016
I am curious to know if others based in EU are getting info or not. I can't tell if its my profile block or my location that's making Goog tell me "maybe some results in a while"
posted by infini at 2:57 PM on June 30, 2016
posted by infini at 2:57 PM on June 30, 2016
The great thing is, you know it's not just deleting these items from your view because both Google and Facebook have internal teams tasked with utterly destroying their business models. And they're winning! The future's so rad.
posted by petebest at 3:10 PM on June 30, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by petebest at 3:10 PM on June 30, 2016 [7 favorites]
Severe executive dysfunction from multiple disabilities means that without outsourcing my reminders, my location, and my purchases, I would NOT remember buying things, where I was on a given day, or what I need to do next.
Regardless, I'm of two minds. On one hand, I'm relieved they have all this information. I weigh the privacy 'violation' (with consent) against the fact that I'm one of (likely) billions using these services. Even though I tried to switch to Signal for texts or PGP for emails, my friends & family think I'm paranoid and don't bother. We're all lucky enough to not have much to hide.
On the other hand... on the rare occasions I need complete privacy, I now must turn off my cellphone & tablet then begin the laptop's ritual sacrifice to the hacker gods: Tape over the camera, boot VPN, figure out how to use Tor, cover all the windows with aluminum foil, and speak in analog format to meat-space visitors only, who must also undertake the activities enumerated above.
Enjoy your increasingly silo'd internet of convenient Big Brother, sheeple! Idiocracy approaches.
posted by saveyoursanity at 4:22 PM on June 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
Regardless, I'm of two minds. On one hand, I'm relieved they have all this information. I weigh the privacy 'violation' (with consent) against the fact that I'm one of (likely) billions using these services. Even though I tried to switch to Signal for texts or PGP for emails, my friends & family think I'm paranoid and don't bother. We're all lucky enough to not have much to hide.
On the other hand... on the rare occasions I need complete privacy, I now must turn off my cellphone & tablet then begin the laptop's ritual sacrifice to the hacker gods: Tape over the camera, boot VPN, figure out how to use Tor, cover all the windows with aluminum foil, and speak in analog format to meat-space visitors only, who must also undertake the activities enumerated above.
Enjoy your increasingly silo'd internet of convenient Big Brother, sheeple! Idiocracy approaches.
posted by saveyoursanity at 4:22 PM on June 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
Directions to Costco. Directions to the dentist. Directions home. I am boring (and have no sense of direction).
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:42 PM on June 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:42 PM on June 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
lol it's 17 different puppy videos and Formation, that's the whole thing for 8 years of this email address
why the fuck doesn't everyone just LOG OUT idgi
posted by poffin boffin at 4:44 PM on June 30, 2016
why the fuck doesn't everyone just LOG OUT idgi
posted by poffin boffin at 4:44 PM on June 30, 2016
Hmm, nothing but YouTube results from my phone. Apparently I like learning to draw wolves and watch a lot of Bailter Space videos.
posted by Miss Otis' Egrets at 5:32 PM on June 30, 2016
posted by Miss Otis' Egrets at 5:32 PM on June 30, 2016
I must've turned all this off at some stage. Nice one, past me.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 6:09 PM on June 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by obiwanwasabi at 6:09 PM on June 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
They displayed only my YouTube history. Everything else was "Paused". I wondered if by briefly turning on some of the other categories I might see anything they might have collected under those categories, but then I remembered Pandora's Box and decided it was probably safer to leave the lid closed.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 6:36 PM on June 30, 2016
posted by Autumn Leaf at 6:36 PM on June 30, 2016
Nothing but Youtube. Mostly Hamilton-related videos. Yup.
posted by lunasol at 9:50 PM on June 30, 2016
posted by lunasol at 9:50 PM on June 30, 2016
Except for a brief period of YouTubing in 2013, my Google account is locked down tight.
The bit on the privacy checker that says "Control what others see about you" tells me I have 1 follower. How can I see who this is? I had no idea I had a follower. It's nice, I'm sure, but hardly enough for a cult of personality.
posted by bryon at 10:22 PM on June 30, 2016
The bit on the privacy checker that says "Control what others see about you" tells me I have 1 follower. How can I see who this is? I had no idea I had a follower. It's nice, I'm sure, but hardly enough for a cult of personality.
posted by bryon at 10:22 PM on June 30, 2016
my voice searches seem to mostly be me wondering about stuff regarding the dog, while walking said dog
can dogs eat mango
can dogs eat strawberries
can dogs eat reindeer bones
can dogs eat blueberries
dogs low pressure weather
pros and cons of neutering dog
why does dog lie down when seeing other dog
salacious crumb laugh
..
as well as dozens of set alarm for ___ minutes (naps)
and, turn on flashlight
(finland in a nutshell, basically)
posted by speakeasy at 1:26 AM on July 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
can dogs eat mango
can dogs eat strawberries
can dogs eat reindeer bones
can dogs eat blueberries
dogs low pressure weather
pros and cons of neutering dog
why does dog lie down when seeing other dog
salacious crumb laugh
..
as well as dozens of set alarm for ___ minutes (naps)
and, turn on flashlight
(finland in a nutshell, basically)
posted by speakeasy at 1:26 AM on July 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
Offers advice on moving to Finland.
posted by infini at 3:25 AM on July 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by infini at 3:25 AM on July 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
I have been really good at logging out, so mostly it's all cat videos, instructional training videos from work, and then this two hour Tuvan throat singing video over and over.
I am not sure what you could sell me based on that.
posted by chainsofreedom at 6:16 AM on July 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
I am not sure what you could sell me based on that.
posted by chainsofreedom at 6:16 AM on July 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
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