Google knows a lot more about us than it needs to. By default, it stores the history of everything you do, but you don't have to accept that. You can clear Google's history pretty easily (and then you'd be surprised how much the service knows about you). We explain to you how to do that.
Profile information
You can find whatever you want from Google, but it's nice that the service documents all the information it collects about you in one place. This does not offer any guarantees, however. Of course, Google has to follow rules, but if the company says it doesn't keep anything from you, this doesn't have to be the truth. This does not alter the fact that we can in any case do our best to protect our privacy as well as possible. To view your Google data, surf to myaccount.google.com and log in with your Google account. In the left pane, click Personal information. There you will see the data known to Google that is also visible to others. click on Go to About me at the bottom and delete what you don't want visible.
Clear history
Then there are of course the things that are only visible to you, such as your search history, your surfing behavior, voice commands from Google Assistant and you name it. When you click Data and Personalization in the left pane, you will arrive at a collection page, with an overview of all categories in which Google stores data about/from you. You can also see exactly which options are enabled and which are not. Click each option you want to disable and click the switch from. Google should no longer keep track of the options you've disabled. On the left side you will also see the button Delete activity based on… Click to clear the history of that specific activity.
Advertising Preferences
Finally, you can also adjust your advertising preferences on the overview page. When you click To Ad Setup under the heading Ad Personalization, you can turn off ad personalization. Advertisements will therefore no longer be tailored to your online behavior.
