tools, technology, work
If you go to TikTok in a web browser, you get the option to ‘Accept’ their cookies or read their very exciting Cookie Policy. Click on ‘Cookies Policy’. Scroll almost to the bottom of the page, looking for a red button (it’s a big red button on mobile). This takes you to a page where you can ‘Opt Out’ of tracking from TicTok’s surprisingly short list of partners. Or you could just go straight here: https://www.tiktok.com/legal/cookie-settings?lang=en
Advertisers love to use ‘interest-based ads’, as ‘interest-based ads’ sound a lot nicer than ‘personalised ads’ or ‘targeted ads’ or even ‘customer-profiling’.
But they’re all actually the same thing – despite the different words/terms/marketing.
Amazon’s warning users that it’s using ‘interest-based ads’ with Amazon Music – which is probably another reason not to use Amazon Music, but that’s another post.
Go to amazon.co.uk/adprefs – or to amazon.com/adprefs (or both if you use both sites).
Turn ‘interest-based ads’ off.
Go to chrome://settings/ (you’ll probably have to select that and paste it in as a url)
Click on the yellow text to see some surprising options:
Make sure the last two are turned OFF – otherwise you’re sending your browser data to Google in real time.
If you have Chrome sync turned on, you might not be surprised to find out that Chrome syncs far more data about you and what you browse to its servers than you might expect. Go to https://chrome.google.com/sync?hl=en-GB to see what data Chrome’s uploaded for you.
To get rid of this, scroll down to the bottom of the page ’till you see this:
Hit ‘RESET SYNC’ to remove your data. You should probably still turn sync off though…
I was naive. I thought that since I don’t use Google Assistant, I didn’t need to pay attention to how it used my data. WRONG.
If you go to the https://myaccount.google.com/yourdata/assistant page, you’re greeted by this:
Now look at the highlighted text:
Scroll down the page and you’ll find this:
You’ll probably want to turn them off.
People like to buy things that their peers like. Google wants to leverage this by using your reviews and comments to support Google advertising and search results.
If you’re not ok with that (and do you think you should decide what you promote, or are you happy to let Google do it…?) go to https://myaccount.google.com/shared-endorsements
Turn that sucker off.
The easiest way to merge information about individuals is by having a common attribute that can be used to identify and then link information that shares a common feature – email address, phone number, social security number etc.
To limit how Google links data to your phone number go to https://myaccount.google.com/privacycheckup/3?continue=https%3A%2F%2Fmyaccount.google.com%2Fdata-and-personalization
In the ‘Help people connect with you’ section make sure these settings are turned off. If you want people to have a (slightly) harder task of finding you with your phone number you should also turn this setting off.
Chrome has a very complicated data model that appears to offer you granular control of your data and how it is managed/saved by Google.
In reality, Chrome’s privacy settings are complicated by design to try and obscure how Google is collecting your data and to effectively limit how you are able to manage that data collection and what Google does with your data .
Go to https://myaccount.google.com/contacts
Turn this OFF.
Google makes money by ‘personalising’ your experience. In practice, this means Google aggregates as much of your online and offline activity as it can in order to profile you as accurately as it can. The more accurate the profile, the better it can personalise your experience, and the more accurate the ads Google can target you with… and the more $£€ Google makes (off of you).
Go to https://myaccount.google.com/data-and-personalization, and scroll down to the activity section to see what personalisation settings are active.
You will want to go to each of the three sections and pause ‘personalisation’ – fortunately they’re all actually on the same page at https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols .
