Do we feel monitored by Google and Facebook? Let’s see together how to set a level of privacy so restrictive as to prevent spying.
Google privacy control
In order to be in compliance with European laws, all the items relating to user privacy must be modifiable, so as to pass from the most permissive settings (with data shared and crossed between multiple sites) to the most restrictive settings (less sharing of data and information personal).
The starting point for Google accounts is the Privacy Control system, which offers different entries for each type of account (also based on what we have already activated or deactivated in the past).
On most profiles, we will be advised to activate the automatic deletion of web and app activities, which is very useful if we want to take advantage of Google services but do not want our personal information to be kept for too long.
Moving forward with the privacy checker we will be offered (in most cases) to automatically delete YouTube history after a certain period of time: a wise move, which prevents us from collecting too much information about the types of videos we like or view. more often.
In addition to the suggestions shown by Google, we can also analyze in detail the privacy of each service by taking us to the Data and privacy page, a true reference point for anyone who wants to keep the privacy of the Google account under control.
By bringing us to this window we will have access to other privacy tips and we will also be able to disable the other actions and activities that spy on everything we do , among which the following stand out:
- Location history
- Personal search results
- Ads settings
- Location sharing
- Access to personal information
- Third-party apps associated with Google
- Voice commands recorded with the Google Assistant
We then open all the items and menus present in the Google privacy control and disable everything that we consider harmful to our privacy. On paper, we can also disable everything, but inevitably some Google services may not work properly or work only with the basic settings.
After the many scandals that have involved Facebook over the years, the social network also offers very powerfully privacy control tools. Of course, we can’t expect total privacy, but blocking or deactivating the items indicated by the privacy checker could already significantly improve the way our data is used.
The reference page for checking is Facebook Privacy Control, accessible with any Facebook account.
Opening this page we will find ourselves with various sections to explore: for good privacy control, we advise you to open them all, so as to obtain the optimal level of privacy for our profile. By opening the various sections we can:
- See who accesses the content we share
- Protect your account from unauthorized access
- Choose the methods by which people search for us on Facebook
- Change the settings on the data shared by Facebook
- Change preferences on ads visible on Facebook
The items that will appear in the various sections are customized, since each of us has set up the Facebook profile in various ways over the years: this screen actually contains all the steps that were done by hand in the social settings and that often ended in the oblivion.
Another useful link for carrying out a privacy check on Facebook is the Quick Privacy Link, which in fact contains in a single page any data or information processed by Facebook on our account.
The advice is to open all the items present and see how privacy is set up on Facebook, so as to make the profile much safer and less subject to spying and data theft.
Conclusions
Compared to the past, the privacy controls on Google and Facebook have become very simple to carry out: we just have to access the right pages and change the privacy options that we do not like or that we fear may one day open the doors to spying or excessive tracking. This does not mean that Google and Facebook will stop collecting data: the data will always be collected, but by choosing the most restrictive settings these data will be deleted by themselves after a certain period of time or will no longer be shared with other sites or other services.
