Google tracks a lot of your data. If you’re comfortable with that, it can make your life a little easier. If you’re not, it can be a pain to figure out how to turn it off. Fortunately, there’s one settings page where you can disable a lot of it.
Earlier this year, Google created a timeline of your activity that you can browse to see just what the company knows about you and delete it if you want. However, that only handles the data that Google already has. If you want to stop it from getting that data in the first place, follow these steps:
Head to this link to find your My Activity page.
Click the menu button (three vertical dots) at the top-right of the page.
Click “Activity Controls.”
Here, you can scroll through a selection of different kinds of Google tracking, including web activity, location history, voice recordings, and YouTube history. You can disable as many of these as you want. Keep in mind that might mean you lose some Google features (for example, disabling voice recording will probably remove Ok, Google from your phone), but you can rest a little easier knowing that data isn’t tied to your account. This isn’t a perfect solution, as Google may still collect anonymized data, but it at least won’t be tied to your name.
How to Find Out If Google Has Been Listening to You | MakeUseOf