I've held off long enough but tonight was the night I finally found out what Google knows about me.
Even I was impressed with what they have on me.
First I go to Ad Settings and see what personal information they have. "Ads are based on personal info that you've added to your Google Account, data from advertisers that partner with Google and Google's estimation of your interests".
Not that bad. Then I random clicked on the categories and then the 'Manage' button. I saw every search I've ever made within that category.
I then go and visit Timeline. This information is derived from location-based services (or even mobile mast pings I suppose). Here's a sample of where I was in July 2017 (Sri Lanka).
Lastly, I trot into My Activity page. Just today, I've got 342 activity items. That's ads served, sites visited, searches, news stories read, videos watched, maps...everything for the day. If it's 342 just for ONE DAY, imagine how many there must be for the year? Or ever?
Although Google has a lot of information about me, I'm not as scared as maybe I should be partly because the data is hardly sensitive. Sure, it's a little creepy being delivered an ad based on my current and historical internet activity; it just takes some time getting used to it.
This post was based on this CNBC story: How to find out what Google knows about you and limit the data it collects