Google wants to convince that it protects the personal data of users of its many services. A difficult campaign, given that he pays on the targeted advertising is displayed in its free services. On Wednesday, he announced that he would remove now default all the data of its users older than 18 months, either on the web or on its applications. The option of deletion had been created in the last year, but remained hidden at the bottom of the security settings.
“data Minimization”
This announcement is part of the strategy of Google to “minimisation of data”, that is to say, the use of the number, the more restricted information as possible on the internet. “We continue to challenge us to do more with less, and today, we are changing our practices for the conservation of the data to make the automatic deletion as default value for the parameters of main business,” explains Google in a blog post. This means that your activity data will be continuously and automatically removed after 18 months, rather than stored until you choose to remove them.”
These deletions of historical data will not be realized in the back of the users. Reminders to be proactive will be sent. Those who want to retain the history of their location, to remember for example a good restaurant visited two years ago, will be able to do so.
Hard not to see a connection between Google’s announcement and a recent decision by the French Council of State against him. While the european Regulation on personal data protection (RGPD) celebrated its two years, the State Council has validated a few days ago the record fine of 50 million euros pronounced by the CNIL against Google for breach. The CNIL considered that the “security center” that allows Google users to manage privacy settings, was too complex and too vague.
data without value
What not to the “data minimization” will not cost a lot to Google. The old data have very little value – if any – for advertisers, and therefore for Google. “Generally, it is necessary that there has been interaction in the past month for a given ad is interesting to use,” explains Alexandre Mahe, partner at FaberNovel. If the data is older than a year, she no longer has great value.”
Better, delete the data older than 18 months may be the opportunity for Google to give a good blow of the broom on its servers. “It is obvious that we will have less stored data, recognizes Eric Tholomé, senior director at Google Maps. This is good news for the optimization of our computer resources, so will have a financial impact and environmental benefits. But this is only an additional benefit of this action in favor of our users.”
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