Writing about personal technology the last few months has been a labor of love. 

Putting into words what I think is great about personal tech, what sucks, and what should be changed has been daunting. Putting my name on an original article every seven days on a topic which matters to me and expecting anyone else to care about it feels akin to walking into a Mister Universe contest expecting to take home the title.

It’s been tough, partially because at times I have not been as candid as I could have.

A recent post is an example. It’s okay, but I flopped around for several hours before publishing something which was a tad underbaked.

I should have spoken from the heart and said what I felt. Thanks in part to Mark Schaefer’s new book and a recent article by Ted Gioia, here goes: Google is evil. And it wants to stay that way.

If there were an Evil-o-Meter we could use to assess the suite of Google’s “free” tools – Chrome, online search, Gmail, etc. – the needle would be pegged in the red.

Why?

Google is the undisputed heavyweight champion of online search, of web browsers, of email, and online video via YouTube. It is everywhere baked into almost everything many of you do on the internet.

That dominance enables it to feed an enormous advertising ecosystem with your data facilitated partially by settings on by default when you sign in to your Google account. They give the company access to monetize basically everything you do online. Every search. Every click. Every trip you take. Every website you browse.

Here’s a way to think about this: at night, when you get undressed in your bedroom, do you close the blinds or keep them open?

If you use Google products and don’t manage your settings, the blinds are always open and everything you do online is the main attraction.

Hence, Google is evil, or, at the very least, so concerned with making as much money as it possibly can, it is willing to monetize the eyeballs of everyone it can get to use its “free” products.

Mark Schaefer is not evil. He’s one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet along with being one of the smartest people writing today.

Part of the marketing campaign for Schaefer’s new book “Audacious” includes a fantastic video which repeats the tagline, “It’s not your fault.” It’s worth one minute and nine seconds of your time.

Just as we “did not create this marketing pandemic of boring” Schaefer writes about so powerfully in “Audacious,” you did not set out to feed Google’s money machine with your online activity.

Google set it up that way. On purpose. It is not your fault.

There are, however, many steps you can take to remove your data from Google’s Information Industrial Complex. I’ll cover several of them in future posts.

Today, we’ll walk through your Google Account settings so you can mindfully decide what you do and do not want to share.

From the Google homepage – https://www.google.com – click the account icon in the top right corner. Select “Manage Your Google Account.” You’ll be presented with this screen. 

Look at the links available. Google asks for your phone number and your home address not solely to serve you better. That’s one component of it, but they’re asking for that info to add more data about you and those around you to enhance their ad targeting and profiling to make more money.

This recent article from The Times provides a great explainer highlighting why Google wants this information, including this:

But few of us realise that the mere act of being in proximity to someone else can define what adverts we are served. This is known as “proximity advertising” and helps explain that eerie but usually mistaken sense that our phone is listening to us.

On the Google Account page, select “Data & Privacy” in the top left corner. You should be able to click it, but Google isn’t going to make this easy. Here’s a screen recording to show what I mean.

Every time I selected an option, Google opened a modal in the top right corner of the screen showing me other Google products. They appeared to be trying to distract me so I’d leave the page and not make the changes I wanted to make.

cough, cough, evil bs, cough cough

Ignore them. We have a job to do. Click someplace else on the page, and the modal will disappear.

CAVEAT: While the changes I am about to show you are allowed by Google’s terms of service, they will impact your experience with Google products. I’ve had my account set like I’m about to show you for years. Aside from momentary pauses of pique, I haven’t regretted it one bit.

On the “Data & privacy” page, scroll down to “History settings.” Select “Web & App Activity.”

By default, Google records everything you do in its services and apps. Let’s stop that, and delete all activity associated with the account.

A few clicks, and this Cyclops has one less eye.

You can do the same thing with your YouTube history. It includes all the videos you ever watched and every term you ever searched for on the platform. This was the one twinge I felt when I wanted to revisit a video I had seen years before, but I got over it. I think you will too.

Back on the “Data & privacy” page, you’ll see a section titled “Personalized ads.” Click the “My Ad Center” option to see what Google thinks it knows about you.

Yours will look somewhat like this. 

There’s no benefit to you for Google to have this information. In the top right corner select “On” beside “Personalized Ads” and, on the next screen, click “Turn off.”

Skip back to “Data & privacy” now, then click on “Search personalization.” On the next screen, slide the button beside “Personalize Search” to the left to shut it down.

Congratulations for taking this first step of the journey. Watch for more helpful articles about how to take control of your online activity and live free of the prying Google eyes.

I got fired up about writing this article six days ago listening to Mark Schaefer talk with Andy Crestodina. They were recording an episode of The Marketing Companion podcast. Something Mark said lit me up:

You got to double down on the human.

I hadn’t been pleased with my last post. It was okay, but I knew I could do better. I could be more human.

What Schaefer said caught my attention. I had half this post written before lunch ended.

And then I read Ted Gioia’s recent Substack – The World’s Largest Search Doesn’t Want You To Search – and my path was clear. Gioia writes powerfully about Google and its desire to keep users locked into its search platform at all costs.

His language and approach showed me what could be possible if I keep going. Here’s an example:

That turn of phrase grabbed me and would not let me go. It’s a very powerful way of making the point, and I kept returning to it throughout the week.

Thanks, Mr. Gioia and Mr. Schaefer, for lighting a way through the darkness.