Ask the question “What does Google know about me,” and the answer may shock you.
It knows a lot. It knows where you’ve been on the internet and where you’ve been in real life too. And if it knows that much about one person, it knows that much about everyone.
Take what people look up on the internet. Google’s web browser sends anything typed into the search bar to a Google server in real time, even in incognito mode and before you hit Enter.
When it comes to private Gmail conversations exchanged with friends, family, or anyone else, Google scans every single one. Depending on how you use AI inside Gmail, you may inadvertently add your sensitive messages to Gemini, which can be used for AI training.
As for the routes you take using Google Maps, Google saves and tracks every location, including the date and time you traveled.
Even for those who try to avoid using Google, its services are intertwined in the internet. Over half of all websites use Google Analytics, which captures information from web or app visits — meaning Google can track and gather data on people even if they don’t use Google’s search engine or Chrome browser.
That question alone is reason enough to dig deeper into just how much this Big Tech company knows about you and what your data is worth to Google.
- Understanding Google’s reach
- How to find out what Google knows about you
- Google knows things you never shared
- The link between surveillance capitalism and Google
- Google’s ad system is designed this way on purpose
- Leave Google behind, starting with email
Understanding Google’s reach
This list of things Google knows about you is extensive. The company actively acquires and knows the following:
Calendar, including your schedule, appointments, meetings, who they’re with, and where
Web and app activity, including the websites you visit, the apps you use, and how often you’re on them
Photos, including where they were taken and who else appears in them, such as children
Documents, including the way you write and the topics you write about
Internet search history, including what you type but change your mind about and don’t get to actually run a search
Emails, including unsent ones sitting in drafts
Your voice: Google knows how you sound and the way you talk if you use Google Home, Nest, or any other Google Assistant-branded apps.
Maps history (also known as timeline), including where you go and when
YouTube search and watch history: Your searches (from cooking videos to tutorials on how to change a tire) create a vivid profile of you. Time spent on each video is also tracked.
When this list is taken together, Google can make a ton of assumptions and draw a lot of conclusions about you. The emergence of AI like Gemini only helps the company make connections faster and build a detailed profile about your life and connections, even if the people around are not active online.
How can you find out what Google knows about you?
You can’t type “What does Google know about me?” into Google and expect an accurate answer. But you can take steps to understand the depth of what Google knows about you so you can better control your data and privacy. After all, you can only understand what you know — and Google is betting that the majority of its users won’t take the steps to find out.
Go to your profile and click Manage Your Google Account. On the left side, you’ll see a menu of options on the left — click Data and privacy. Here are a couple of good places to start.
Here you’ll see just about everything — and yes, we mean everything — that you’ve been up to on the internet while connected to your Google account. You can browse your web and app activity, look at where you’ve been on Google Maps, get a complete backlog of every YouTube video you’ve ever watched (down to the day), and more.
Health and voice data
If you use a smart watch, Fitbit(nova janela) (which was acquired by Google in 2021), or any other wearable device to monitor your physical statistics, it’s likely synced with Google Fit or Google Health. While these must be enabled for your health tracker to work, you should always consider whether you want Google to know details about your health, including your weight, menstrual data, heart rate, activity level, sleep cycle, and steps for the day.
Voice Match is Google’s way of recognizing your voice across its Google Home products. Your voice can be as personal as a thumbprint, and allowing Google access to your voice helps it train AI and adds to the plethora of sensitive data Google can use to identify you.
Download your data
Want the answer to “What does Google know about me?” Downloading your data is the best way to see everything that Google has collected about you. Keep in mind, the document will be large and you may have a lot to sift through. Go to the Google Dashboard (under Data & Privacy) and click Download your data to request the information.
Google knows things you never shared
When one Proton employee asked “What does Google know about me?”, she found that Google knew things she never personally told it and that it was learning things about her in real time.
It knew that she was recently single, even though she had never selected this option. It knew her income bracket, where she lived, that she doesn’t have kids, and that she was renting an apartment — all without her touching a single button.
When she looked at her timeline, she could see every destination she’d traveled while using Google Maps.
How to stop targeted ads
To stop targeted ads, head to myadcenter.google.com(nova janela) and turn personalized ads off (top right corner).
Next, go to myactivity.google.com(nova janela) and turn off tracking for Web & App Activity, Timeline, Play History, and YouTube History.
You can also access your Data & privacy settings by clicking your Google Account icon → Manage your Google Account → Data & privacy.
The link between surveillance capitalism and Google
Google isn’t just a tech company with a search engine. It’s an advertising juggernaut. Google explains it this way:
Google’s main source of revenue is from ads on our own sites and apps. Advertisers tell Google the types of audiences they want to reach, and we try to show their ads to people in those groups. Each of Google’s products and services show ads in different ways to help reach new and existing customers.
By amassing thousands of data points on nearly everyone in the world, Google has extended its reach: Essentially, Google has so much data on us that it has become the largest engineer of the ad surveillance industry(nova janela).
Google gives its users the illusion of choice, and, therefore, the illusion of a better online experience. Take the wording of Google’s “personalized ads” philosophy. Through friendly language, the company encourages you to make “your ads more relevant by letting Google know what you’d like to see more or less of.” This is Google’s way of making targeted ads sound like a free service you’re receiving, rather than a way to use information about you — your location, sexual orientation, hobbies, and income bracket — to influence your decisions.
Google’s ad system is designed this way on purpose
Let’s examine this line: “Advertisers tell Google the types of audiences they want to reach, and we try to show their ads to people in those groups.” It sounds harmless, but it isn’t.
Google uses a system known as “real-time bidding” (RTB) to auction off your data to the highest bidder.
Here’s how it works: First, Google builds an in-depth profile on you using your data. Then, it broadcasts that data to thousands of companies that compete in an auction to buy ad space, which will appear as a targeted ad on your computer screen.
This raises serious risks. Because your data is being exposed to thousands of advertisers in a matter of nanoseconds, it could also fall into the hands of data brokers, cybercriminals, or the US government.
“Each time you see a targeted ad, your personal information is exposed to thousands of advertisers and data brokers,” writes Lena Cohen from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “This process does more than deliver ads — it fuels government surveillance, poses national security risks, and gives data brokers easy access to your online activity.”
Leave Google behind, starting with email
Every piece of personal data that Google touches, from searches and email to location history and voice, routes back to one place: your Google account. That’s what makes it so valuable to Google and so risky for you. A single login ties your entire digital footprint into one profile, which is exactly why deleting your Google account, deGoggling, and switching to privacy-first alternatives is a great way to become safer online.
The best place to start is email. Your inbox isn’t just where your messages live but the master key to your digital life, linked to your bank, subscriptions, social media, and work accounts. Whoever controls your email can reset your passwords and piece together a detailed picture of who you are.
Proton Mail is a natural first step away from Google. It protects your messages with end-to-end encryption and zero-access encryption, which means we never have access to your data and can’t scan it to build behavioral profiles, show ads, train AI models, or share it with third parties — and we don’t want to.
