How To Find Out Everything Google Knows About You

[HardOCP News]

Since now we all know what Facebook thinks we are interested in, I guess it's time to find out everything Google knows about you. It's actually kinda creepy to know what these two companies know about you and what they do with that info.


Google uses a lot of methods to learn about you. There's the stuff you tell Google outright when you sign up for its Gmail or to use your Android phone. This includes your name, phone number, location, and so on. But Google also watches you as you scamper around the internet, deducing your interests from your internet searches — what do you search for? click on? — from your use of Google's other services and from other websites you visit.

 

[Darunion]

Top search clicks. amazon, wikipedia, midwayusa, gunbroker, digikey.....I need to rethink my life....

 

[steakman1971]

Mine was not as bad as I thought it might be

 

[nutzo]

No wonder I get such stupid ads.
Over 1/3 of the stuff they list under interests, I either don't care about or completely hate.

 

[MikeRotch]

Mine was not as bad as I thought it might be

Yah, mine isn't as bad either. LOL

 

[MadMurdock]

Mine isn't bad, but that's probably because I don't log in. HAHA chumps!

 

[KazeoHin]

Wait, Its saying I'm visiting web pages I've never heard about...

 

[Nytegard]

Eh, not too bad. Apparently I've only ever been to two places, so obviously one is home and one is work, and my searches all involve Stack Overflow, and why Android is the worst POS to work with.

 

[pothb]

Wow..... there is barely any information on me... even though I claim to be aware of privacy and such, I expected that they found out more than that about me.

 

[KazeoHin]

Yeah, This isn't really all that creepy.

You can find infinately more out about me by literally Googling my Screen Name

 

[Zepher]

Most of these categories are from others using my devices.

 

[dvsman]

Wow that is pretty crazy. I especially like the geo-location stuff - it has all of my vacations / road-trips dotted up, I'm impressed. But as much as google has on me (for using their search engine and Youtube every day), if they can deliver ads that I actually like, I really don't mind. Better than getting random ads all the time that have no relevance whatsoever.

 

[northrop]

Your interests:

Hair care

I'm fucking bold, Google!

 

[dvsman]

I just spent a few minutes un-checking all of those weird activities it had me down for which I actually am not down for ... hope they give me better ads now :-D

 

[Soarin]

Nothing on mine, turned it off a couple years ago

 

[Zepher]

Your interests:

Hair care

I'm fucking bold, Google!

So you are Bold. Bold people need hair care products.

 

[crusty_juggler]

You do not have any interests associated with your Google account.

Interests are used to show you ads that are relevant to you.

Interests will be added automatically as you use Google services or you can add specific interests.

Ghostery FTW

 

[Mut1ny]

Wow, there's no interests on my list...or lack there of. Quite surprised really as I've been using the same Google account for like 13-14 years and use nearly everything Google (search, Gmail, Chrome, YouTube, etc).

Interesting as I would have thought they'd have SOMETHING on me. I guess not!

I have however done 83,000+ searches though. I'm sure you could find out WAY more about me by digging through those...

 

[Comixbooks]

I use Bing cause they pay me with Bing Rewards

 

[xX326Xx]

I think Google needs to rework how it thinks it knows me. It has no clue based on those links.

 

[Nukester]

I have nothing in either area. Does that mean I'm not really alive?

 

[Phatal]

I have nothing in either area. Does that mean I'm not really alive?

Same here. I guess my habit of only logging in when necessary and using filtering plugins (like Privacy Badger) in Firefox are working.

 

[Nukester]

Same here. I guess my habit of only logging in when necessary and using filtering plugins (like Privacy Badger) in Firefox are working.

I do the same!

 

[Xrave]

Odd...porn isn't listed as an interest.

 

[tazeat]

This functionality has existed for years? What's the news?

Also mine is empty because I opted out of that years and years ago.

 

[Nenu]

How do you find out what it knows if you havent signed up for anything?

 

[Deleted member 245375]

Only thing I've had enabled for a long time now (several years) is Location history for a variety of reasons, just wiped that out for the moment which I hadn't done in some time. I did tell it to archive the data so I could see what kind of archive I'd end up getting, it would have been a zip file about 90MB in size so, not all that much I assume but it's all gone now and I'm starting fresh again (so to speak).

I have multiple Google accounts (don't most people?) and keep them basically as disabled as possible for most everything.

 

[Snowdog]

Mine just says:

"
Get more out of Google
When you have Web & App Activity, you help products like Search and Google Now offer you more tailored results"

Others (like youtube searches) say "paused"...