Ever since Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, concerns over the privacy and security of user data have continued to sit in the spotlight. Like Facebook, Google is responding to the trend by making its otherwise nebulous data settings more accessible to the average user.
The latest efforts made by the tech giant are to its core service – Google Search. You will soon be able to review and delete your recent searches as well as get a simplified array of privacy controls and a rundown on how your data is used in relation to Search from the page itself.
All of these settings, as well as a short explanatory video, will be accessible from the main menu when on the Search screen, under a settings tab entitled “Your data in Search”.
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Another relevant option that will show up is Ad Settings. This will control the kinds of ads that appear within your search results. You will also have the ability to select which search history information can be used by Google to refine your future searches.
By default, a user's search history will heavily influence both the above options, affecting the kinds of advertisements that target the user as well as refining future searches to better align with their previous searches.
The changes will be rolling out to Google Search for desktop and mobile web browsers from today, and will find their way to the iOS and Android Google apps in the coming weeks. Similar changes will come to other Google services, like Maps, next year.
