Google announced broad changes in its default data practices for new users, including a significant expansion in the company’s willingness to automatically delete data.
In a blog post announcing the changes, CEO Sundar Pichai emphasized the company’s commitment to privacy, security, and user choice. “As we design our products, we focus on three important principles: keeping your information safe, treating it responsibly, and putting you in control,” Pichai wrote. “Today, we are announcing privacy improvements to help do that.”
Last year, Google started to let users automatically delete their history after three or 18 months, but this was not enabled by default. Instead, they had to choose an auto-delete option or manually delete their history. Now, existing users may see reminders that they can use this feature, but the company won’t change their settings.
18 months seems like a reasonable amount of time. Google will be able to use historical data to personalize experiences, such as video suggestions on YouTube, but won’t necessarily have a trove of information about the user’s life. The ability to specify how long Google could keep one’s data, rather than only having the two choices of three or 18 months, but this move is a step in the right direction.
Alongside the new default settings, Google will also make it easier for users use Chrome’s Incognito mode, allowing mobile users to switch to Incognito mode with a long-press on their profile picture. The feature launches today on iOS and will soon come to Android and other platforms.
Google announced an expansion of the Password Checkup tool earlier this week.
