See What Google Knows About You

Posted: April 20, 2021

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="441"] Image: PCWorld[/caption] There aren't many areas of the digital world that Google doesn't have some sort of connection to, as is the case with most big tech companies. And, like other companies, Google knows a ton about you even if you don't know they do. It's a good idea to check to see exactly what data they have and take steps to delete it if you'd like. Unlike most tech companies, Google does make it a little easier to find out just what they know, and you can then decide how to proceed. Ian Paul, contributor to PCWorld, shares how to see what Google knows about you and how to delete it.

How to see what Google knows about you, and delete it

Google collects a lot of data about you if you use the company’s services. To its credit, the company makes finding and deleting that data easy by showing most of it on a single website. Here’s how to see the bulk of what Google knows about you, and how to delete it if you want. Once you delete data from your Google Account, the company immediately starts removing it and stops using it for personalization. “We then begin a process designed to safely and completely delete the data from our storage systems,” Google explains. It may be forced to keep some information for legal requirements, which you can read about at the link above.

Google Accounts

The primary starting point to see what information Google has about you is the My Account website. From here you can find the information you’ve supplied, as well as data the company gathered in the background. The My Accounts site offers a set of tabs at the top, as well as some informational tiles covering topics such as security and privacy issues with your account, how much available storage you’ve used, and a quick link to the personalization section. Read the entire article, How to see what Google knows about you, and delete it, on PCWorld.