If you are concerned with your privacy and freedom, and you want to make sure you are taking care of both as best as you can, there are a few things you might want to look into. One that is likely to prove particularly important is the role that Google plays in all this. As a company, Google profits from the personal data of its users, but if you don’t want to be tracked by the tech giant then there are some steps you can take to keep them off your back. Let’s see what they are.
First of all, it might be helpful to take a look at what data Google has on you. Before you do this, though, you should be warned that it can be pretty frightening viewing the first time around, and this is something that you are certainly going to want to bear in mind. If you are wondering how to see what Google knows about you, you just need to log into your account, click on Privacy and select Ad personalization. From there, you can see everything that they hold on you to date.
If you don’t like what you see there, or you just want to start afresh with Google, you can delete whatever information they have on you. Bear in mind that they don’t make it easy, and you might need to go through a few steps, but it is nonetheless possible, and you should certainly do it if you are worried about how much data there is about you out there. In any case, just starting afresh can often help you to feel a lot better about your privacy in the online world.
If you want, you can also use Google in a more limited way. That can be really effective, but it is hard to do - Google is everywhere, so you might be giving up a lot if you really want to do this. However, even if you just limit how much you use them, that can help. You might, for instance, swap out their search engine for Duck Duck Go, an alternative that doesn’t track you or keep any data on you. Simple changes like this can often make a huge difference on the whole.
