Google has recently made changes to its privacy policy, which includes auto-deleting new users’ web data after 18 months, by default. What this essentially means is that Google will be deleting web data that is older than 18 months, on a rolling basis. Such data include: browsing history on Chrome, YouTube and location history on Maps.
Google to Automatically Delete New Users’ Web Data After 18 Months
It has to be stressed that the data mentioned here does not include those stored in Gmail, Drive and Photos—these data will remain available to the user regardless of time. Interestingly, this feature had already been introduced to existing Google users last year, but this wasn’t enabled by default.
This time round, Google has made the new data retention ‘timeframe’ feature (also known as auto-delete controls) enabled automatically for new users. Below is an example of how the company will implement this feature to new users:
Here’s how it works: Starting today, the first time you turn on Location History—which is off by default—your auto-delete option will be set to 18 months by default. Web & App Activity auto-delete will also default to 18 months for new accounts. This means your activity data will be automatically and continuously deleted after 18 months, rather than kept until you choose to delete it. You can always turn these settings off or change your auto-delete option.
Whilst this new feature may confuse some users, we suggest you to spend some time reading Google’s rather informative blog page to find out the finer details—it’s concerning your private data anyway. Regardless, we do see this move by Google as a step in the right direction by providing users with the ability to determine how long the company can store private data on their servers.