Google Dashboard: Find Out What Google Knows About You HERE (VIDEO)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google is offering a new privacy control that will make it easier for people to see some of the information being collected about them.

The "Dashboard" feature unveiled Thursday pulls together all the data that pour into Google's computers whenever Web surfers log in to one of the company' services.

That includes summaries of an individual's e-mail, search requests and viewing habits on Google's video site, YouTube. Before, a user would have to check multiple places for all that.

The snapshot doesn't include any activity that occurs when a person isn't logged into a Google service.

Dashboard represents Google Inc.'s latest step to give its users more control over their personal information and appease privacy watchdogs.

Comments

[Pinoy Tutorial]

It isn't the greatest product of Google nor the ugliest, but I must say there are so many faults in terms of privacy and security BIG G conceals there. To a programmer, the last thing that he would ever want to happen is someone snooping around his "browsing-history". I guess we can't blame Steve Ballmer (Microsoft, CEO) for saying that "google read your gmail account every once in a while"

detailed review:http://bit.ly/google-dashboard-biggest-spy-of-BIG-G

[commarketing]

i am very much excited to see this dashboard :)

[BilaalUSA]

Just as our prisons are filled with falsely condemmed inmates, so too will higher powers manipulate data to give the false impression that someone is engaging in illegal or unmoral computer activity. Its not so much the information, but the hands holding it.

[valhalladad]

"Just as our prisons are filled with falsely condemmed inmates,..."

A little OT but you know this....how? Because they said so?

[Kalikala]

For people who really want to maximize their privacy on Google I recommend a Firefox add-on, Customize Google. Besides allowing you to remove the ads, it anonymizes Google's cookie UID and removes the click tracking, among many other options.

[alexolife]

Sure. More like it fleshes out Google's databases by adding a "people who don't want Google to spy on them" category. Good for market research. Google wants some of that vigilante civil libertarian dollar, too.

[fcsakes]

Well, I made the mistake of looking at mine. Really, even if I delete all that stuff, they'll still have it, right?

How utterly boring for them.

[RTIII]

Right, and probably, I wouldn't know.
.

[nicainmiami]

More like find out what Google knows about YOU and is willing to tell you.

[Fabini]

How do I find Dashboard?

[Fabini]

I found it in the Privacy area.
Almost nothing there. One web search from last April.

[Pinoy Tutorial]

You need to be logged in on your gmail account / other google service then check this link: google.com­/dashboard

as for the post, As said from the mouth of Microsoft CEO:

"Google reads your gmail account once ina while" when you're under scrutiny.

detailed review: http://pinoytutorial.com/techtorial/google-dashboard-googles-biggest-spy-unleash-on-your-account/

still, one don't like the idea of someone watching your every move on the web.. Ayt BIG G?

[imajoebob]

Google's trying to deceive users into thinking they've got some sort of control or security over their information. They're also trying to fool non-Google users into thinking they can get better control by surrendering MORE information to Google by enrolling in their sites. What's worse, Google is still doing this to everyone else using any Google server, from search to YouTube to everything else they own, but they won't reveal how they track you.

Google isn't Big Brother. Their just money-grubbers who'll happily sell you down the river for a few pieces of silver. Google makes a TON of money selling your internet information to anyone with a checkbook. Worse, they'll give your info to most governments gladly, to curry favor with the regimes (ask the Chinese political prisoners how they were caught by Google and turned over to the military).

Here in the states they've rolled over for the Bush Administration (and I have to presume Obama, too) every time they were asked. I doubt it has anything to do with "security" or 'patriotism," but another act of venal commerce. Do you think the Justice Department will even investigate Google for anti-competitive practices if the intelligence services are getting all the data they need just by asking?

Call me paranoid, but it's a healthy paranoia. Especially when it concerns the confluence of covert surveillance and unbridled commerce.

[Dante in Madison]

You might be on to something. Is it even possible to find out what a person searched for?

Say you're an employer or potential employer, they don't have a way to find out what Google searches you've conducted--unless Google stores that data and *sells* it to companies.

[RTIII]

In the raw form they manage on their servers, yes, they can *aproximately* distinguish your search queries. I say aproximately ,because several people may use a particular system or what appears to them as a single IP address, such as a small company that uses particular kinds of firewalls - like Network Address Translation. In such cases, all the users from one IP would be lumped together unless Google is using an identifying cookie - which they may well do.

They are not supposed to provide the raw query data - and it's hugely valuable to them. However, we already have at least one known leak of such information...
.

[ynp7]

Learn some grammar, it'll make you look slightly less like a kook.

[aweissnet]

What a useless comment.

[stoprollingover]

You should learn some manners. It will make you look slightly less like a b00r.

(By the way, two sentences should be separated by a period, not by a comma.)

[imajoebob]

Learn the meaning of "grammar," and you'll look like less of a dipsh*t. A (singular) spelling error (perhaps usage is more precise) is not a grammar problem. While this may not have been perfect, I always received Firsts almost exclusively for my prose, so I suggest you know little of what you speak. Until you can learn what a semicolon is, and what it is used for, shut yer yap.

[ScreenName05]

Actually you can find out more by just looking at the history and cookie files in your browser - they actually store every place you go, at least until you delete them. Google doesn't now nor can it every have this much information, unless you stay signed on to a gmail account. Firefox has a drop down at the top labeled "History" where you can see your site history.

[RTIII]

Very sadly, you are right. Google is the borg of ST fame - in its infancy, of course.

I boycot their services, completely. The most involvement I have is sending email to people with Gmail accounts now and then.
.

[seatech1]

I don't use any of google's products anymore. I'm probably still being tracked by hundreds of other services, but google is the biggest. I'm a pc tech, and will almost always remove google products from my clients' pc's when I work on them, unless they tell me not to (I ask first).
It's probably pointless, but I would prefer not to give up my privacy without at least a semblance of a fight.

[pov]

It may be a smart move on their part, to clear tons of stored up space on their backups to free themselves up to provide for a much faster service and at less of a cost to them? Just a thought!

[James Shanks]

Storage is cheap. I don't notice anything slow about accessing most of Google's services. Freeing up space make anything faster. That is something people say to people running Windows on their home desktops, which hardly ever solves the problem anyway.

[jsgaetano]

What I've always wondered is, does Google keep a record of who you correspond with, and tie that in with who they correspond with? That kind of network profiling is where the real damage can be done.

Another issue is IP logging. Once they associate you with a MAC address, they can look at the IP and use that to figure out where you live, where you work, where you go (especially with Google Maps Mobile), etc.

It's really scary the amount of things they'll know about you... and all they need to do is retain logs, and cross index it with other logs.

[cdub1991]

There's always Bing.

[isaidit]

Cherries or Crosby?

[lomamonster]

Just go to the dashboard, access your personal information, select web on the left, select all on the top and then select delete all web history. That will get you back to the future...

[KIVPossum]

That will delete what you see. I doubt it deletes it in Google's archives.

[RTIII]

You are most certainly correct. What this most likely does is flag a "deleted" column in a database table somewhere, so they know not to present you with that data in the future...

Unless their user policies explicitly call out the full deletion of data - and I highly doubt it does, but I'm not about to waste an hour of my time reading the darned thing - then you can be sure they keep the data.

[studlyguy]

Nazi Germany would be proud!!!!

[lomamonster]

It's easy to delete the web history on Dashboard, then the account is put on "pause", but reactivates as soon as another Google service is accessed. Concerned activists should check in daily, kinda like a final signout procedure, eh?

[christianm1973]

The headline here is deceptive. Nothing has changed and there is no way to opt out of Google tracking your activity for their marketing purposes. All they did was create a way to link all the "settings" pages of their various applications.