Sorry about the long title but I just couldn’t think of a better way of expressing my amazement at how much Google knows about my online life/activities. Well, at least for all the things that I do while I’m log in to my Google Account. Google Dashboard – we were just asking about this yesterday and here comes Google officially announcing it. My reaction upon checking http://www.google.com/dashboard? – I was surprised and scared at the same time.In their own words, here’s what the Google Dashboard is all about:
Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use (when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your personal settings.
Currently, it covers more than 20 Google products and services right now, such as Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts, Latitude, Profile, Web History and more. From those services, the only one that I don’t use too much is Latitude. I used most if not all of them on a daily basis.
Doesn’t it scare you a bit to know that Google knows how many emails you have in your inbox, how many feeds you are reading on Google Reader and more? Well, yeah of course we all know that Google keeps track of these online information and we really don’t mind it at all. But seeing it in on an online dashboard makes it a bit scary.
The good news is – you can edit the information. Delete those that you don’t want Google to keep track off. In fact you can practically erase everything and start all over again. But I don’t see the point in doing that. For as long as you haven’t encountered any privacy issues yet, those information are pretty harmless, in my opinion.
You know what the clincher is? – With all these personal data and information about us, Google can practically control our online lives.
