Recientemente Google has made an announcement on your blog in which you explain that you are introducing a new function for users' Google account which will allow them to automatically delete their location history, web activity data, after a set period of time.
With it heUsers will have the option where they can delete the data after three or 18 months, and then it will continue to be removed continuously over time.
La "Privacy" has been the buzzword in the digital advertising industry.l in recent years, as the largest accumulators of data in the industry have to bow to the increasingly audible privacy lobby to some degree.
This new decision that Google has taken is due because privacy increases every day, plus location tracking practices by the search giant caused problems last year when it became known that Google would continue to track even when you turn off the Location History setting
The user will decide how long their data will be stored
With that Google has had to deal with the problem and announce that it will soon launch a feature that will allow users to automatically delete much of the data the company collects about them.
Google Product Managers Marlo McGriff and David Monsees blogged:
"Since users can now manually delete location history as well as web and application activity, after reading customer feedback they realized this was a bit complicated and time-consuming."
The solution to thatsaid Google, is to give customers a simple method of automatic removal. That is a setting that will allow users to configure automatic deletion of all data after three to 18 months.
«With this new option offered to users, all they have to do is choose a time limit in their account for which they want their activity data to be saved for 3 or 18 months and any information prior to that will be automatically deleted from their account. continuous, ”said product managers.
About automatic deletion
The new feature includes «Searches and other things you do on Google products and services, like Maps; your location, language, IP address, reference, and if you use a browser or an application; ads you click or things you buy on an advertiser's site; and information on your device, such as recent apps or the names of contacts you have searched for «.
This could be the result of feedback, but there is also likely to be continued criticism.
Well, as mentioned, after investigation conducted by the Associated Press last year, Google was revealed to be tracking and recording users' location in various applications, even if they had disabled tracking.
As a result, subsequently Google was sued in the US for falsely representing that users could disable tracking.
An investigation is also being carried out in seven European countries under the General Data Protection Regulation.
Besides that, A recent investigation by the New York Times revealed that police in the US have been using Google's location data vault to catch criminals or, in some cases, innocent people. The Times called Google's gigantic database, dubbed Sensorvault, a "digital network."
Google said the feature will launch worldwide in the next few weeks. The company added that the automatic removal method will start with location and web and app activity, so it might be available for other data at some point.
These controls are the first in Location History and Web and App Activity.
But Google didn't say whether its new auto-delete feature will be available for other specific categories of data, such as YouTube search and playback history, or voice recordings of Google Assistant requests.