Google has wiggled its way into almost every aspect of our digital life. From emailing and search to cloud storage, there's a good chance you're using Google products every day.

This gives Google access to a scary amount of data on you. Google knows what you search for online, the kind of websites you visit, the nature of emails you get, and even the kind of goods you're most likely to buy.

If you use Google's products, your digital life is like an open book. Here are six Google privacy settings you need to change to protect your data.

1. Pause Voice Recording

If you use Google Assistant, Google records all your voice commands plus some of your personal conversations that you might not want it to hear. Google maintains a copy of these conversations long after you've had them.

Having your private conversations stored in Google's servers might seem scary, but that's not the worst of it. Google sometimes pays people to listen to some Google Assistant recordings, so that they can transcribe them into text.

This means, real people, and not just AI systems could be listening to your conversations with Google Assistant.

If you don't want Google to keep these kinds of recordings, head over to your Google Account settings and pause voice and audio activity. To do this:

  1. Visit accounts.google.com on your PC or smartphone. Log in with your Google account if necessary.
  2. Click on the Data and Privacy tab on the top of the screen.
  3. Scroll down to locate the History Settings panel and click on Web & App Activity.
  4. Your activity controls page should come up. Scroll down and locate the section labeled See and delete activity. Click on the Google Assistant icon.

Your Google Assistant activity page should come up. From here, you can view and control your assistant activity.

  1. Locate and click on Saving activity.
  2. Click on Turn off on the next screen. Click on Pause on the prompt that comes up to confirm.

If the See and delete activity section doesn't show the Google Assistant icon, it's likely you haven't used Google Assistant before. You'll need to use the product first before you can apply this setting.

2. Turn Off Location History

If you use Google products frequently, there's a huge chance that Google has a record of every place you've been. Google also knows when you visited these locations and how long you stayed there.

The company tracks the places you've visited as long as your device is with you. You don't even have to use a specific Google product for your device to track you. Apart from a potential privacy breach on Google's end, keeping such data around could pose a security risk. In theory, if someone had your Google account password, they could uncover every place you've been for the last year or more.

To see how much location information Google has on you, visit maps.google.com/timeline

If you don't want Google keeping tabs on where you've been, simply pause your location history. To do this:

  1. Visit accounts.google.com.
  2. Click on Data and Privacy > History Settings > Location History and then tap Turn off.
  3. Read the prompt that comes up and tap Pause to stop Google from tracking and saving your location history.

3. Halt YouTube History

Google owns YouTube so, as you might expect, it keeps an extensive record of everything you do on the platform. This includes what you search for and the kind of videos you watch.

Of course, Google claims it only uses this information to improve its services to you. For example, it may include ads, based on what else you’ve watched.

You can stop Google from keeping tabs on what you do on YouTube by pausing YouTube history. To do this:

  1. Visit myaccount.google.com.
  2. Click on Data and Privacy > History Settings > YouTube History and then tap Turn Off.
  3. Read the prompt that comes up and tap Pause to stop Google from recording your activities on YouTube.

Note that pausing your YouTube history may impact the quality of recommendations and your overall YouTube experience.

4. Turn Off Ads Personalization

Google makes most of its revenue from ads. To keep the cash flowing, the company invests a lot of resources in its ads operation. This includes deploying a massive network of data extraction tools to build profiles of their users.

The company uses these personas to serve you with targeted ads. If you're wondering why you keep seeing baby diaper ads just a few days after you welcomed a newborn, well, Google has been paying attention.

To know just how much advertising leverage Google has on you, head over to adssettings.google.com.

Based on your interactions with their products, Google might know your marital or parental status, your music taste, and even the kind of work you do. This is how Google can serve you with ads that seem as if they came right from your mind.

If you want to put a stop to this:

  1. Visit adssettings.google.com.
  2. Locate a toggle switch labeled Ad Personalization Is On on the top of the page. Toggle the switch to trigger a confirmation prompt.
  3. Click Turn Off on the prompt that comes up to disable ads personalization.

For more fine-grained control, scroll down on the ads settings page to the section titled How your ads are personalized. This section lists Google's estimates of your interests. Look out for any that seem too personal and intrusive. Click on the topic and tap Turn off to unlink it from your Google account.

5. Pause Gmail Tracking

If you use Gmail (or any other email service), at least some of the emails you receive will track you. Email marketers typically use tracking techniques to follow up on the engagements their email gets.

While this seems normal, there's an unsettling element to it. Email tracking techniques like "pixel tracking", used by many marketers, expose more of your data than you might realize.

By simply reading a tracked email, email marketers can find out:

  • Your exact location.
  • The device you use to access your mailbox.
  • The links you click within an email.
  • The time you read an email.
  • The number of times you've read a particular mail.

Email marketers often use this information to personalize their services, but sends can be malicious. Email tracking is both a privacy and security risk. Fortunately, you can put a stop to email tracking on Gmail.

To do this:

  1. Open your Gmail app.
  2. Click on the menu bar icon on the top left corner of your app screen.
  3. Scroll down and tap on Settings.
  4. Tap on the Gmail address you wish to apply the settings to.
  5. On the settings page, scroll down to the menu option labeled Images.
  6. Tap on it and select Ask before displaying external images on the prompt that comes up.

Pixel tracking monitors the traffic to a secretly embedded image to track your email actions. Disabling images renders the technique useless.

You can still see images within your mail by clicking on them when you want to view them.

6. Pause All Web and App Activity History

If you need an option to keep you as incognito as possible when using Google's products, pausing all web and app activity will do the trick. To do this, on your Google account settings page, navigate to Data and Privacy > Web and App activity > Turn off and click on Pause.

This will stop Google from collecting your data across almost all its web and app-based products and services. From Search, Calendar, and Play Store to Google Assistant, YouTube, and Chrome, this will halt all activity recording.

Unfortunately, if you depend on Google's ecosystem, pausing all activity history can disrupt your digital experience.

Take Back Your Privacy

Safeguarding your privacy can be a bit difficult in our increasingly invasive digital world. However, you can take little steps to protect as much of your private digital space as you can.

Once you've made the suggested changes, you should keep an eye on the data you share when using any Google-related products and services.