*WAHINGTON – If you thought turning off your location will keep yourprivacy protected from Google, you are probably wrong as your privacy mightstill not be protected.*
New report has suggested that Google services on Android and iPhone devicesstore users’ location data and track every move minute-by-minute regardlessof them turning their location history off in their privacy settings.
The report suggested that though the location can be turned off at anytime, certain Google apps like Google Maps, browser searches and weatherupdates still save their time-stamped location data in order to target adsbased on users’ particular locations. Turning off Location History,however, will only stop Google from adding user movements to its Timelinefeature that visually logs where they’ve been.
The report also claims that Google ‘stores snapshot of where you are’whenever the user opens the Google Maps app. The automatic daily weatherupdates track approximately where the users are. Even Google searches like‘chocolate chip cookies’ that have nothing to do with location will tooinform Google the users’ exact longitude and latitude, wrote *The Sun.*
Yet, as per *The Verge, *users can dig in through settings to turn off ‘Weband App Activity’ to actually stop Google from tracking users. The option,which is enabled by default, will no longer be able to store location dataand the exact GPS coordinates once turned off. Users can also manuallydelete the stored location history data by going to myactivity.google.com.
In a statement, Google said, “There are a number of different ways thatGoogle may use location to improve people’s experience, including: LocationHistory, Web and App Activity, and through device-level Location Services.We provide clear descriptions of these tools, and robust controls so peoplecan turn them on or off, and delete their histories at any time.” -agencies