What's the Big Deal if Your Cell Phone Learns Stuff About You?

[KarenF]

Google knows where you go if you have location turned on and your Google account is attached to the phone.

 

[CaptTom]

...my Google Now newsfeed is full of celebrity gossip and other generic junk I would never read...

...The one setting I left 'on' is YouTube History.

I deliberately don't use a customized news feed and I use YouTube in a non-tracking browser.


I want to decide for myself which news stories, and which videos, to see. I specifically try to avoid letting any algorithm feed me an echo chamber of things it things I'll find "engaging."

Since I go in with no history, YouTube shows me the most popular videos. It's depressing to see the drivel that makes it to the top recommendations.

 

[RobbieB]

Google knows everywhere I go. Because I have Android Auto guiding me. They give me a report every month where I've been.

Guide me to places I've never been before with good results.

Hey I'm not an arms or drug dealer, just want some good fish eh?

Not worried. Don't have a tinfoil hat.

 

[Koolau]

See my tag line. No point arguing about it as you either care about privacy or you don't. No one is likely to change your mind. If some day you find it was problematic to share your life with the world, it will be too late to get it back. YMMV

 

[Cobra9777]

I deliberately don't use a customized news feed and I use YouTube in a non-tracking browser.

I want to decide for myself which news stories, and which videos, to see. I specifically try to avoid letting any algorithm feed me an echo chamber of things it things I'll find "engaging."...

I agree with you in general, and that's partially why I turned off all tracking. But I never used Google Now for "news" in the traditional sense. Like YouTube, I had "trained" Google Now to feed me stories related to my specific interests, mainly developments in science, technology, engineering, as well as history, linguistics, geography, music, travel, and a few others. That's certainly not an "echo chamber" in the sense that most people use that phrase.

The way I had it configured, Google Now was a very useful service. I miss having quick access to that content. But I can still find it and it's a relatively small inconvenience for the other benefits of turning off all tracking.

I have YouTube configured with the exact same topics. I never watch traditional "news" on YouTube. And anything on my Recommended line that's NOT related to one of my topics, I click it and tell Google I'm not interested in that video. At some point, I might turn off YouTube history tracking as well. But for me right now, it's a reasonable tradeoff since YouTube is 90% of what I watch on TV. And the service works extremely well for me.

 

[CaptTom]

I have YouTube configured with the exact same topics.

You've convinced me it's worth a shot. I've never really given YouTube a chance to learn my preferences. As you say, science and technology don't have two, and only two, opposing viewpoints the way politics is now. Presumably I could filter out the "10 most exciting" lists, BigFoot sightings, leaked iPhone models and horoscopes to get some real science and technology stuff. I would take great pleasure in flagging any video whose icon is superimposed with a shocked-looking face, mouth and eyes wide open. Those have got to be the worst!

 

[davidfin]

For me it is a tradeoff, google knows every car ride I take, every bike ride and every walk, I don't like that, but I do like the monthly report where I can see how many miles I walked or when I took a certain trip, seems handy. Google also knows how many hours I spend watching Youtube videos. (tail between legs hanging head in shame), but I can use the history if I want to pull up that video again. A far as personalizes ads, I use adblock on my computer, so I miss most of them, and I gloss over ads on my phone so can't recall them but maybe they got into my subconscious mind. I don't know, but surely not causing me to over spend.

Seems to me that most willingly trade their personal data in exchange for services these folks value. Google and Waze offer traffic and rerouting based on the “personal” location and velocity data from folks traveling near you. Who doesn’t use Google maps or enjoy family updates from Facebook. This is a perfectly reasonable exchange of goods or services for information. If you’re uncomfortable with the exchange, limit your internet use to email.

 

[target2019]

I used to be pretty cavalier about this. Then about a year ago, I turned off Web & App Activity as well as Location History in Google's data and privacy settings. I also deleted all my historical data. Google allows you to use their services without tracking everything you do. But the vast majority of people either don't know, or don't take the time to turn it off. And of course, some want it on...

While all Google services still work for me, they are not nearly as useful. For example, Google Maps no longer suggests places I regularly navigate to, like my home. And my Google Now newsfeed is full of celebrity gossip and other generic junk I would never read.

I also suspect it's working because ads I see when browsing are completely unrelated to me, like women's cosmetic products. Also, email confirmations from airlines no longer result in an automatic calendar appointment. And of course, when I go to Google Takeout to download or delete my data, there is nothing there. In the past I could see my activity in all it's gory detail.

The one setting I left 'on' is YouTube History. I use YouTube a lot. It's 90% of my TV viewing. So I like having "Recommended" videos that are in-sync with my interests and other YouTube channel subscriptions. That's how I discover interesting new content beyond my current subscriptions. YouTube knows my interests extremely well.

I know Google still has a lot of my personal data, like my CC numbers in Google Pay, Contacts, Calendar, and a copy of every digital photo I've ever taken. To name a few. But with all the tracking turned off, I feel a little less like "The Product."

At the same time, I also turned off data tracking in the Alexa app. Deactivated my Facebook account. Deleted unneeded apps on my phone. And reviewed all permissions on the apps I kept. Hopefully I'm a troublesome target.

What you could do is get another google account, and make it the "anything goes" identity. I think the default settings will give you all services, and google gets to track you, and so on.

For your private self, use the current google account where everything is turned off.

I use Brave browser for fun browsing, since it has additional blocking features.

I think on a phone this is more difficult to achieve.