How to get your data from Google

Davey Winder Read more February 21, 2011

If you use any of the Google services, such as Gmail or Google Docs for example, then you’ll have a Google account.

This is handy, as you can use the same login to access the Google Dashboard, which provides a one-stop summary of everything Google knows about you, from which YouTube videos you’ve watched to the address registered for your AdSense account, and even your whereabouts if you use Google Latitude.

From the Dashboard you can access all these services to manage your accounts and the information held by them.

How to reclaim your data

Getting rid of your Google search trail, in as far as searches about you go, is rather like pushing an elephant uphill – pretty much impossible. However, cleansing the trail of searches made by you is quite another matter.

Think of a web trail and you probably imagine the history kept by your web browser. Stored locally, this is easy enough to manage and delete. But what if that same click-trail, plus more, was stored by Google on its servers?

Scroll to the bottom of your Google Dashboard, locate the aptly named Web History, and you’ll find a detailed list of everything you’ve searched for and the pages you’ve visited while logged into your Google account.

This is used by Google to help refine and improve your search experience. You can remove individual items or clear the entire history from the Dashboard, but Google points out that it retains a copy log anyway.

You can freeze the history feature using the “pause” option from the history page, but since your history is accessible only by logging into your Google account, the best way to protect your data and prevent your search history going public is to use a secure password that you change regularly and don’t use for anything else.

Or, better still, don’t sign into Google when using the search engine.