Is Google spying on me? Google is one of the most prolific data mining companies in the world. They have been accused of profiling their user base with good reason. I’ve dug through Google’s many privacy policies to clearly answer the question – does Google spy on you, and if so what’s the extent?
Google’s primary goal as a search engine is to classify the internet so that people are able to find the most relevant results for their queries. As a free service they profit from advertising to the huge amount of resulting traffic. They openly collect data on you in order to make their adverts more accurate and their searches more relevant.
If Google is open about the data they collect they can’t really be accused of spying. There is some truth that Google spy – or collect data – on their users but which is it?
I have done a few investigations into how Google are so good at profiling their users. I first started looking at why google might spy on you to address how user experience has become such a huge part of SEO over the last few years.
How do Google know what users do after leaving their search engine? They created one of the most popular browsers, the largest video search, the industry standard analytics system. They even created a widely used operating system. Their list of products created at huge cost just to give away for free goes on.
Advertising is all about targeting and targeting is all about understanding an audience. On closer inspection nearly all Google’s acquisitions can be seen as furthering their understanding on their users, or their ability to spy on their user base through a different medium.
Google exists to mine data, but up until very recently they would always dodge the question of exactly how this data is collected and processed. When it came down to more personal information they wouldn’t even give a suggestion of what exactly they were collecting.
There’s two schools of thought. Is Google’s spying selfish only existing to improve their ability to generate revenue, or are selflessly trying to create the best free search engine that they can? Regardless, both the motive and the method are there for Google to spy on their users. All that’s left to find is the proof.
If you agree to a privacy policy Google aren’t spying on you. Digging through privacy policies and account settings I found Google have become much more open over the last year about how they collect data but this isn’t common knowledge yet.
Contents:
- Where’s My Privacy Google?
- Chrome and Android’s Covert Past
- Think Your Emails Are Safe?
- How YouTube Collects User Data
- Does Google Spying On Me Affect SEO
- Is Google Spying On Me? The Conclusion
Where’s My Privacy Google?
Google are constantly innovating new products which beat their competition through simple usability and interaction with other widely used products. They then give them away for free. It’s a brilliant formula.
The price is your user data – and in some cases I would say Google is spying on you. If you follow the links to the sources I use you will see the wording they use is often deliberately unclear.
If you use Google+, Gmail, Google Drive, YouTube, etc. Google creates you one account used across all products. When you signing up to this account you agree to their terms and conditions and consent to their privacy policy.
There are many different ways you can use our services – to search for and share information, to communicate with other people or to create new content. When you share information with us, for example by creating a Google Account, we can make those services even better – to show you more relevant search results and ads, to help you connect with people or to make sharing with others quicker and easier
From: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy – there’s a lot more to read there if you are interested, modified august 19 2015.
Although nobody actually reads this policy, and it was written fairly recently they do openly admit that if you share data with them that they will use it. The Google account is used as an example but as this one account covers all products they could be spying on you in unexpected ways. As usual Google are slippery with their wording.
Chrome and Android’s Covert Past
When I did my last investigation I could only find one credible source which suggested Google used Chrome (and other products) to collect user data for search. That source was a 10 second segment of a 40 minute video.
User experience has been found to correlate strongly with high rankings on Google. Experts are split on whether Google are able to measure metrics such as time spent on site and bounce rate, or if a good user experience indirectly leads to social shares and links being built.
At the time they didn’t state this in Chrome’s privacy policy so I would call this a case of Google spying on you.
Today I can point you to the image below:
Google now openly admit that they can use chrome data to make search more personalised. If you can use the data to make search more personalised they will be collecting data to make search results more accurate across the board.
The image above mentions that they can use history from ‘Chrome and other apps’ to improve search. Could that include location data if you are using a smartphone with Android on it? I would say that’s fairly likely.
The main types of data we collect are based on the actions you take using our services, your basic account details and the things you create.
When you use our services — for example, do a search on Google, get directions on Google Maps, or watch a video on YouTube — we collect information based on the things you do, so we can make our services work better for you. When you sign up for a Google Account, we keep the basic account information you give us, like your name, email, and password. And we store and protect what you create using our services, so you will always have your emails, photos, videos, and documents when you need them.
The bolded quote above is a catch all statement. It means that Google can spy on you if they want to. This one passage means that if you create a Google account they can use any data they are able to collect.
This goes a long way in explaining how much more accurate Google has become recently. At the moment Google is very focused on artificial intelligence, they have all this data which they have been collecting for years, now what they really need is understanding.
Google no longer hides their spying. It is fairly safe to assume that using a Google product your data is being collected and your actions are being stored. This would explain why Matt Cutts famously said that Google doesn’t use any data from Google Analytics for ranking- if you Google can spy on people through their browser, analytics is no longer important.
It goes further than that though. Every time Google updates a product they can implement unexpected features. Two years ago if you were using Chrome Google were able to turn on your microphone and record your conversations as part of their ‘ok Google’ voice search.
The resulting scandal caused Google to backtrack and remove this feature. Personally I think it’s unlikely chrome was maliciously eavesdropping on their users. It would take way too much man power, but the fact of the matter is that they could have been.
Think Your Emails Are Safe?
In 2014 Google updated another privacy policy admitting that they have programs that analyse your emails to give more accurate adverts.
Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection.
htps://www.google.com/policies/privacy/
Google can, and does release this data to law enforcement, this means that it isn’t a purely automated system. It’s well worth reading up on their transparency policies if privacy is important to you.
How YouTube Collects User Data
My last investigation focussed on the effect YouTube had on Google’s other products (like news). Google has created an ultra targeted network of convergent technology.
YouTube has yet to make any significant profit, but has a huge revenue stream. You can be sure Google aren’t just flushing money away out of the kindness of their hearts.
Google gets a lot of information about your interests from YouTube. They do this in many different ways, the easiest to demonstrate is I found that my news results were suggesting content to me based on my YouTube history.
I also deleted my YouTube history, spent a day surfing the web using Google but not watching videos. After a day YouTube had new recommendations for me with no history. I found a lot more but that is a whole ‘nother post.
Google doesn’t use your history to personalise organic search by default yet, but the fact the option’s there is HUGE. They seem to be testing the system out on YouTube first.
If you watch a lot of videos it is very convenient to have a YouTube account. YouTube is extremely good at recommending videos based on your interests. Because video is such a good platform for gauging users interests it is one of the most effective products Google has for profiling you.
Does Google Spying On Me Affect SEO?
I have predicted the coming of individualised search for a long time. Google+ gave some personalisation by placing posts from your followers in your SERPs.
Now personalised search has landed, I predict soon it will be an opt out system rather than opt in as it is now. It wasn’t so long ago when SERPs were universal no matter your location.
If people visit your site on chrome you want to give them the best possible experience because you don’t know what metrics could be collected, but you should do that anyway. In practise for SEO not much should change.
I’d say Chrome bookmarks probably are a ranking factor so create bookmark worthy content to get people returning to your site. Maybe even chuck into a few call to actions. Chrome user? Google is spying on you, please bookmark this page to boost my rankings 🙂
This explains some of the correlations which have been found between user experience metrics and rankings which were previously thought to be co-incidental. Times have changed. On page SEO is all about user experience.
Is Google Spying On Me? The Conclusion
My prediction is Google will keep going with their artificial intelligence algorithms until they are accurate enough to roll out universally. One thing stopping them could be the fear people have of Google spying on them.
They are combating this by making their terms of service more transparent and account privacy more customisable – but you still have to read all these long legally worded documents which few people are willing to do.
Does Google spy on us? Yes and no. Last year when I first looked into the subject I would say they were – the information simply wasn’t there on how they collect and use the data.
Now that they are more open you are consenting to it just by using their products and ticking the little box agreeing that they can do what they want with your data. The line is more than a bit fuzzy.
Still, call it Google spying on you, or call it profiling. You would be pretty naive to think that Google spends billions on free products then gives them away for free with no catch. Everything has a cost, to use Google’s products the cost is your privacy.
This isn’t common knowledge but it should be. If you learned something new, please share this post to help raise awareness.
Other investigation into how Google spies on you:
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