It turns out that there are some steps you can take to limit the type and amount of data that Google collects on you. This is especially relevant if you live in the Android ecosystem but even for those of us, like me, who prefer to live in the Apple world, some of these steps are useful to stop some of the collection.
Via John D. Cook’s excellent Data Privacy twitter feed, I found a pointer to a Wired article entitled All The Ways Google Tracks You—And How To Stop It. The article tells you how to find the Google pages concerned with managing your data and how to turn the collection off. If you’re signed into your Google account (such as Gmail) you can simply follow a link in the article and it will take you to the page. Once there, you can turn off the collection of various sorts of data and delete what they have.
I’ve made a point of not being signed into Google for some time now. About once a month I check my Gmail account and then delete cookies so that I’m signed out again. If you’re like me, simply sign in to your Gmail account or whatever you have, follow the link, and set things the way you want them. When you’re done, delete your cookies and everything should be fine.
This is, I know, like bailing out the sea with a teaspoon but every bit helps.