11 reasons google may know you better than you know yourself

11 ground Google may know you good than you do This is a list of topographic point where Google collects info about you, and is meant to build consciousness about privateness. But first, what can Google do with that data?

although Google has historically been a strong privacy advocator, it does allow for some uses of info it collects, which the company outlines on its privateness page.
How Google can use your info

- We may use personal information to provide the services you’ve requested, including services that show customized content and ad.

- We may also use personal information for auditing, research and analysis to operate and improve Google engineering and services.

- We may share aggregated non-personal info with third political party outside of Google.

- When we use third political party to aid us in processing your personal information, we require that they comply with our privateness Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

- We may also share info with third political party in limited circumstances, including when complying with legal procedure, preventing fraud or imminent harm, and ensuring the security of our web and services.

- Google processes personal information on our servers in the United States of United States and in other state. In some cases, we procedure personal info on a waiter outside your own state.

If you’re interested in keeping personal info to yourself, then it’s important to recognize touch points where Google is trailing your motion. This list isn’t comprehensive and is in no specific order.
The list

- Gmail: monitoring device text in all entrance and outgoing messages, displaying sponsored ad for matched keywords. Depending on how much electronic messaging you procedure in Gmail this could be a huge end product of info to Google.

- Google Analytics: path what visitors are doing on your site, which is good for you and for Google.

- Orkut: records what you’re doing with friends and who you choose to associate yourself with.

- Google Search: records every search term you enter and can often be traced back to specific IP addresses. That means Google can forecast what areas of the country are interested in specific topics at specific times. And it makes much of that aggregate information available publicly on its Trends site.

- Picasa: allows you to organize and upload photos, and the metadata you enter about said photos is stored somewhere on Google’s servers.

- Google Toolbar: tracks every place you go on the web unless you disable that option.

- Google Maps: monitors what locations you’re searching and which types of businesses you’re interested in. Incredibly useful for local entrepreneurs.

- Adwords and Adsense: tracks what you’re interested in marketing for your site or business in general, or the types of content you’re posting if you’re a publisher. That can provide competitors with some potentially detailed information on key initiatives.

- Google Checkout: gathers financial information from you to process payments (as well as Adwords and Adsense).

- Google 411 (1-800-GOOG411): records voice commands given to the system, ostensibly for training and refinement purposes. Since the software is transcribing your voice to a data command though, it could easily be repurposed.

- Social Graph API: identifies connections between social networking accounts, which creates a clearer picture of how you represent yourself online and who you associate with.

This list isn’t meant to inspire paranoia, but rather to point out how much information Google could be gathering about you, and to create that awareness. Note that with most of these applications you are in direct control of how much information you volunteer, but withholding information will limit functionality.

Despite adding immense value for its users, a data warehouse with this breadth of scope creates inherent risks. Let’s hope that Google has invested enough in its security architecture to keep that information safe.