Google / Getty Images / WIRED
Google makes money from selling advertising – the more targeted an ad is for you and your interests, the more money Google makes. And to do that, Google needs data – lots of data. Each search, each click, each slide of an application, everything is combined to make Google one of the richest companies in the world.
In the past few years, Google has improved the ways in which it controls the data it collects, but there is still more that can be done to help people understand what they are delivering. Enter Apple.
In December, Apple introduced privacy labels on its App Store to show what information each app collects and how it can be linked to you. This can include everything from your browsing history to your location. Google, perhaps unimpressed by Apple’s move, was slow to update its applications with details of what it collects and how. Consider this: more than 60 apps and nine of its products have a billion people than a billion people use Google apps. There is a lot of data.
Here is all the data that three of Google’s biggest apps – Gmail, Chrome and your search app – collect about you and what you can do to take control.
Google app
The Google search app adds widgets and its own voice search to iPhones, as well as providing personalized recommendations for news and topics of interest. However, as with a large number of Google applications, the data linked to you can be very rich for a number of settings at the device level (such as photos and videos), you will need to give the application permission to access them.
Data that is sent to advertisers (other than Google): Location information, search history, browsing history and other usage data.
Data that is sent to Google for advertising or marketing: Location information, contact information (including physical address, email and name), search history, browsing history, user identifiers (user ID and device ID) and usage data (product interaction and user data) publicity).
Data used for analysis: Location, contact information (physical and email address), contacts, audio data, search history, browsing history, user identifiers (user ID and device ID), usage data (including product interaction and advertising data), failure and performance data, and ‘other types of data’.
Data collected for product customization: Location, contact information (physical and email address), photos or videos, search history, browsing history, user identifiers (user ID and device ID), usage data (including product interaction and data advertising) and advertising data.
Data collected for the application’s functionality: Payment information, location, contact information (including physical address, email, name and phone number), contacts, user content (including photos or videos, audio data, customer support details), search history , browsing data, user identifiers (user ID and device ID), usage data (including product interaction and advertising data), diagnostics (failure data and performance data), and other types of data that are not defined.
Gmail
Data that is sent to advertisers (other than Google): location, user IDs and advertising data.
Data used for analysis: purchase history, location, email address, user content (including photos or videos, audio data, customer support and ‘other’ content), search history, user identifiers (user ID and device ID ), usage data (including product interaction and advertising data, failure data and performance data, and ‘other’ types of data.
Data used for product customization: email address, contacts, emails or text messages, audio data, search history, user identifiers (user ID and device ID) and usage data.
Data collected for the application’s functionality: purchase history, location, email and name, contacts, emails or text messages, photos or videos, audio data, customer support and other user content, search history, user identifiers (user ID and device ID), product interaction, diagnostics (failure data and performance data) and other types of data.
chrome
Data used for analysis: location, audio and customer support data, browsing history, user identifiers (user ID and device ID), product interaction data, diagnostics (failure data and performance data) and other types of data.
Data used for product customization: location, browsing history, user identifiers (user ID and device ID) and product interaction data.
Data collected for the application’s functionality: payment information, location, audio data, customer support data, browsing history, user identifiers (user ID and device ID), product interaction, failure and performance data and other types of data.
What this data means and what you can do about it
While much of the data that Google collects is used to help the company personalize and target advertising to you, especially data linked to user IDs, there is also some data that Google will use to ensure that your applications continue working as expected. This can include diagnostics and failure data that will tell the company why the application has stopped working several times.
Google’s rivals were quick to point out that their apps – as shown through their own privacy labels on the App Store – don’t collect that much data. For example, the search engine and browser DuckDuckGo claims that it does not collect any data that can be linked to users. The app store shows your app collecting usage and diagnostics data, but this is labeled ‘data not linked to you’.
So, what can you do about data collection? In Chrome, Google’s privacy settings can help you limit what is collected about you. Here you can turn off third-party cookies that follow you on the web and send requests so that you are not tracked online (although this setting is largely ineffective). In the settings, you can also turn off synchronization so that your browsing history is not transmitted to all your devices.
Perhaps the most control you can put over what Google collects comes from your Activity Controls. Here you can prevent Google from saving your activity on the web, disable access to your location, and stop personalized ads.
All of the above will limit what Google can access about you to some extent, but it is only a sticker. If you are going to use Google, you are agreeing to collect data about yourself. Of course, this is the case for many of the free apps and services you use.
An alternative is not to use Google’s applications or services. While this can be beneficial for data collection and privacy, it does have some disadvantages. Google’s vast resources mean that it has developed some of the most feature-rich and well-functioning services – competitors cannot recreate exactly the same results that Google produces in searches, for example.
This does not mean that it is not worth trying or switching to more privacy-friendly alternatives. Probably the easiest Google product to abandon is Chrome. There are several privacy browsers that limit the collection of user data and stop tracking you on the web. Our favorites include Brave, DuckDuckGo, Tor and Firefox Focus.
Moving away from Gmail is more difficult, as there are not that many well-developed competitors. Switzerland-based ProtonMail, which uses end-to-end encryption for messages, is the main Gmail alternative to consider.
Matt Burgess is the assistant digital editor for WIRED. He tweets of @ mattburgess1
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