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Google – My Activity

myactivity.google.com

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Re: Google – My Activity

#131

Post by CobrastanJorji »

throwaway287391 wrote: post #98
UtahDave wrote: post #71

I'm not the most tin foil hat kind of person. I don't mind some of the tracking Google does as long as I know about it. This url shocked me. They apparently track every app I open and use on my Pixel phone. They had individual entries for when I skip a song in Google Music. I feel physically sick. I went through and deleted most of what I could and turned off tracking where I could.

I'm sorry, but ... are you (and others here with similar reactions) serious? You don't think Google knows when you skip a song in Google Music? How do you think recommendations work exactly? I thought this was HackerNews, not my grandpa's Facebook feed.

I feel like you have this idea that technically literate people are magically immune from normal human foibles and think through the entire logical chain of consequences for every abstract fact of which they are aware. We are not.

Understanding how Google Music works and knowing that Google tracks information about you does not necessarily imply the very real understanding that viewing pages like this provide. People generally don't logic that way, us included.

Re: Google – My Activity

#132

Post by jwr »

jwr wrote: post #47

This is great. Now I can see in a single place how YouTube mixes other people's history with mine. It seems I watched "Funny Dinosaurs in Poop Fight", "Poop Cartoon 04: Fried Sh*t" and "Pirate Pete's Potty: Potty Training Video for Toddlers" yesterday. Fun. (I've been getting some other kid's watched videos in my history, and Google doesn't care about this kind of history mixing, my reports got me nowhere).

Replying in bulk: yes, I am sure it isn't from my device, and yes, I jumped through all the hoops, including changing passwords, logging out all devices, clearing histories, etc etc.

It is not my device. I am getting somebody else's history.

I also reported it to Google, providing additional details, late last year I think. No change. And I have done everything I could, short of deleting the Google account. So all I can do now is tell others.

The amusing thing is how whenever I mention it on HN, it gets immediately downvoted. There sure are some hard Google fans here.

Re: Google – My Activity

#133

Post by sfotm »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #69
glerk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you enjoy your free email account, free maps, free YouTube and free search?

My email (gmail) is bound with so many services (both online and offline) and it is part of my online identity. It would be so much effort to change the email now. I don't think there is an alternative to google maps which is in the same level as quality and richness in information. I would be totally lost without google maps when I'm traveling to other countries, especially when it comes to public transportation lik…

This is the reason why it's so nice to manage your own domain, even if you were to decide to stay on gmail. You can always just point the domain to a new provider.

I've gone from Namecheap's solution to GSuite to ProtonMail to FastMail, all without an outage of any kind. Migrating previous conversations from ProtonMail was sort of difficult, though.

Re: Google – My Activity

#134

Post by jwr »

VikingCoder wrote: post #114
jwr wrote: post #47

This is great. Now I can see in a single place how YouTube mixes other people's history with mine. It seems I watched "Funny Dinosaurs in Poop Fight", "Poop Cartoon 04: Fried Sh*t" and "Pirate Pete's Potty: Potty Training Video for Toddlers" yesterday. Fun. (I've been getting some other kid's watched videos in my history, and Google doesn't care about this kind of history mixing, my reports got me nowhere).

Have you verified this? https://myaccount.google.com/device-activity

Of course. All the devices there are right in front of me and none of them accessed these videos.

I also tried removing all devices and re-authorizing them again, just to make sure. Doesn't change a thing.

These videos are not played on any of my devices.

Re: Google – My Activity

#135

Post by okmokmz »

danShumway wrote: post #13

On this subject https://myaccount.google.com/purchases Turning off all of the controls under myactivity won't stop Google from scanning your emails to track any purchases you make. The only way to stop that is to switch off of Gmail.

I have all tracking disabled, have multiple gmail accounts with which I have made purchases, and there is nothing showing up on this page for me

Re: Google – My Activity

#136

Post by StapleHorse »

cameronbrown wrote: post #48
amelius wrote: post #5

Totally irresponsible. What if another person (colleague, family member, friend, spouse) opens this on your computer? This should be opt-in, not opt-out!

So you'd rather this data be hidden from you?

Thats the thing, people say: "tell the truth, tell everything you know about us". And then freak out.

The truth is, people want conforting lies.

Re: Google – My Activity

#137

Post by VikingCoder »

jwr wrote: post #134
VikingCoder wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you verified this? https://myaccount.google.com/device-activity

Of course. All the devices there are right in front of me and none of them accessed these videos. I also tried removing all devices and re-authorizing them again, just to make sure. Doesn't change a thing. These videos are not played on any of my devices.

That sounds like you're doing everything right.

Next up, we get to wonder if you have a virus on your machine which is playing videos for you in the background.

If the videos play at a regular interval, you could try turning one machine off during that time, and see if the events disappear from the log.

Re: Google – My Activity

#138

Post by hathawsh »

losvedir wrote: post #84

I guess I'll be the lone voice chiming in that I find this pretty useful. There's been a number of times I've been like "oh, what's that song I asked Google to identify a month ago?" or "what was that page I managed to find last year by searching about [x]?" that I've been able to remember via this tool. Yeah, Google knows everything about me. C'est la vie. At least it's useful. What exactly is the threat model that…

What I find surprising is that Google is exposing themselves voluntarily to subpoenas [1]. The more info Google collects, the more courts will try to use Google records as evidence. Therefore, isn't it in Google's interest to collect and store only the exact info they need, expiring records ASAP so there's as little as possible for courts to collect?

Perhaps Google has factored that risk into their calculations and they have decided that in the current legal environment, the money they earn by storing everything outweighs the money they lose by complying with subpoenas.

[1] https://support.google.com/faqs/answer/6151275?hl=en

Re: Google – My Activity

#139

Post by tracker1 »

kelp wrote: post #58
danShumway wrote: post #13

On this subject https://myaccount.google.com/purchases Turning off all of the controls under myactivity won't stop Google from scanning your emails to track any purchases you make. The only way to stop that is to switch off of Gmail.

This is what finally prompted me to move to Fastmail after being on G Suite since 2007. Even though I have to pay for Fastmail and was grandfathered into free on G Suite. Pretty happy with it so far. Now going through the process of reducing all the places I use Google services. Moved my personal stuff from GCP to Digital Ocean. Gmail to Fastmail. Chrome to Firefox / Safari. Currently seeing if Zoho is a good substit…

I switched to DDG a few weeks ago, and it's surprisingly better than I remember. Though for technical searches I have to add a second context parameter "go programming FOO" instead of "golang FOO" etc. But that isn't so bad. I've only fallen back to google a couple times, easy enough with ddg `!g search`.

May switch my browser to Brave, Opera or Edge too... though there are aspects of each of them I'm not fond of. The new Edge is decent.

Re: Google – My Activity

#140

Post by tracker1 »

balaksakrionon wrote: post #128
kelp wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what finally prompted me to move to Fastmail after being on G Suite since 2007. Even though I have to pay for Fastmail and was grandfathered into free on G Suite. Pretty happy with it so far. Now going through the process of reducing all the places I use Google services. Moved my personal stuff from GCP to Digital Ocean. Gmail to Fastmail. Chrome to Firefox / Safari. Currently seeing if Zoho is a good substit…

Fastmail is unfortunately very bad too now due to recent Australian legislation.

Does this include Fastmail use in other countries?
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