Google revealed on Wednesday substantial improvements in its default privacy policies for new users including a major increase of the company’s ability to remove data automatically.
CEO Sundar Pichai stressed the firm ‘s commitment to privacy, protection and user preference in a blog post announcing the changes. “We focus on three important principles as we design our products: keeping your information safe, treating it responsibly and putting you in control,” Pichai wrote. “Today we ‘re making changes to privacy to help with that.”
The auto-delete feature of Google refers to search history, location history, and voice commands obtained by the Google Assistant or apps such as Google Home. Google logs the data in its My Activity tab, where users can see the data points were obtained and remove different items manually. Historically, Google kept the information forever, but in 2019 the company rolled out a way to erase data points automatically after three months or 18 months, depending on the setting chosen.
Starting today, the new users will have those settings on by default. After 18 months, Google will set Web and App searches to auto-delete even if users do not take any action. Google’s location history is off by default, but when users turn it on, an 18-month deletion schedule is also set by default.
The updated defaults will apply only to new users, and current Google accounts do not see any changes to the settings. Nonetheless, in an attempt to encourage more users to explore their auto-delete settings, Google will also promote the feature on the search page and YouTube. You can switch on auto-delete from Activity Controls tab.
The program also applies to the past of YouTube, although the limit will be set to three years to ensure that the platform’s recommendation algorithms can use the wider data.
The new settings, in several respects, reflect a balance between users’ privacy preferences and Google’s commercial preferences as an ad network. Also the most valuable is the most recent data of a user since it can be used to target people who have recently engaged with a particular product. By maintaining the last 18 months of activity, Google is able to retain most of that ad value while also deleting most of the otherwise available data.
In addition to the new default settings, Google will also make use of Chrome’s Incognito mode easier for users, allowing mobile users to switch to Incognito mode with a long-press image of their profile. The app is launching on iOS today, and will soon be coming to Android and other platforms.
Google revealed earlier this week an extension of its Password Checkup tool.
