Back in May, Google announced it would be introducing an option for users of its services to automatically delete their online history, and today the tech giant has begun rolling out the update around the globe.
Specifically, Google account holders will be able to choose a time limit of either 3 or 18 months, after which, their location, web, and app history will automatically be deleted.
Auto-delete controls for Location History start rolling out today on Android and iOS, making it even easier for you to manage your data → https://t.co/dX1uoqcR8O pic.twitter.com/Oc3fk66QNmJune 26, 2019
Users can enable this feature by navigating to your Google account’s Activity Controls page, either on mobile or web, from which you can choose to ‘manage activity’ on either your 'Web & App Activity' or 'Location History' pages.
Depending on what’s become available to you, you’ll be able to ‘Choose How Long to Keep’ your data on either, both, or neither of these pages. If you select either the 3 or 18 month options, you’re given the choice to enact this setting from now on, or delete everything outside of that time period retroactively.
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While users were previously able to do much the same thing by exploring these settings, having to manually delete their history each time meant keeping vigilant if they wanted to maintain a balance between their privacy and the personalization features that rely on this stored data.
The option to entirely turn off the collection of these types of user data is also available, but as mentioned, this will limit some of the search giant’s functionality when it comes to personalizing user recommendations across web searches, maps and other Google products.
