Thanks to a function of its search software, Google has been able to record our conversations for years now; we could also listen to them ourselves!
You can listen to and view your cringe-worthy history logs along with a list of every search you've ever made, on your personal Google history page.
Google built this feature into the company's search function, as a means of delivering precise search results. Nevertheless, the sheer accuracy and amount of data Google stores are shocking.
The good news is that Google allows you to turn the feature off and delete it. We will explain how at the end of the article.
However, even if you do not have an Android phone and use your Google searches on iDevices, Google can still listen to you.
When visiting your history page, it shows you the company's every record of you on the internet.
Of course, the company claims that they never use this information against you and that they do it solely to enlighten your experience on the web. On the other hand, imagine the ominous implications there would be, if Google used all that information against you.
The company now processes more than 40,000 search queries per second on average. That translates to more than 3.5 billion searches each day and 1.2 trillion searches each year worldwide.
The data from those searches are then stored on each person's individual profile history. With the use of this data, the internet behemoth could efficiently influence the whole world. Apart from influence, Google could predict the future merely based on trends.
Much of the search history, is tied to location data retrieved from the device, used to conduct the query. Therefore, not only does the search engine knows your interests, but it also has your specific interests based on your location at any given moment.
Intriguingly, Google’s well-known motto of Don’t Be Evil now seems less like a request for the user and more like a way of checking themselves.
Fortunately, we can all turn this feature off. You can begin this eye-opening journey by heading to your history page and look at the list of recordings. Google has a specific audio page as well as their record of where you have been on the web.
If you have never disabled this feature, you'll see a list of audio recorded outside of the Google app, and also a transcript of the audio which Google has converted to text.
After you further panic by scrolling through the creepy recordings of your search history, we recommend that you delete them all and also disable the functions.
The Independent explains how to do that:
To delete particular files, you can click the check box on the left and then move back to the top of the page and select “delete”. To get rid of everything, you can press the “More” button, select “Delete options” and then “Advanced” and click through.
The easiest way to stop Google recording everything is to turn off the virtual assistant and never to use voice search. But that solution also gets at the central problem of much privacy and data use today – doing so cuts off one of the most useful things about having an Android phone or using Google search.
Now that you are aware of that annoying feature, you can quit handing over your data to unknown parties. Share this article with your friends to inform them and show them how to stop it too.
Reference: Thefreethoughtproject.com
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