Looking at the Privacy Center

So far, you’ve looked at general information that Google uses to keep track of you. But it is possible to manage and check all your information in the Google Privacy Center, which provides a set of privacy tools.

The Privacy Center, which you can find at www.google.com/privacy/tools.html, has tools that are used to manage your information on Google. The following tools are available:

+ Google Dashboard. See and check all the information that Google knows about you.

+ Ads Preferences Manager. View and edit the information Google uses to manage ads (as outlined earlier in the chapter).

+ Data Liberation Front. Move your data in and out of Google. Chapter 12 has information on how to liberate your data.

+ Keep My Opt-Outs. This Chrome extension provides persistent opting out of ads (also outlined earlier in the chapter).

+ Encrypted search. Enables you to encrypt the traffic between you and Google for more secure searching.

+ Incognito mode in Google Chrome. Information on how to browse without web history or downloads being recorded. Press Shift+Control+N to open a new browser window incognito mode.

+ Street View Blurring and Takedowns. Request blurring of images in Street View that feature you, your family, your car, or home as well as inappropriate content.

+ Unlisted and Private Videos on YouTube. Information on keeping videos private on YouTube.

+ Web History Controls. Enables you to view, delete, and control entries on web history. You can also opt out of having your web history recorded completely.

+ Off the Record Gmail Chats. Information on how to have chats in Gmail without them being recorded.

+ Google Analytics Opt-out. Instructions on how to install an opt-out so your visits are no longer recorded on Google Analytics (the service that Google provides to websites so they can track visitors).

+ Search Personalization Opt-out. Disables Google from personalizing search results based on what you are likely to be looking for.

+ Control Your Location in Google Latitude. Adjust privacy settings so you share less information about your location.

Despite collecting a phenomenal amount of information on people, Google appears to be fairly transparent about having that information. It provides you with detailed access to all the data it holds on you and tools to opt out of data collection, and it makes it easy for you to change and delete certain aspects of its data (as well as your whole account).