A recent article on Hacker News pointed out a lesser known aspect of Google search, how it keeps recordings of all of your Google Voice searches. The article also explains how you can find these buried away in your account settings and how to delete them. Log In This wasn't really much of a surprise really, regardless of how they tried to keep it on the down low for the most part. A couple years ago, it was revealed that Google had filed for a patent to listen for ambient noise via a computer or mobile device's microphone, to influence the search results it would return for a user. If you haven't already, now would be a really good time to go through all the hidden settings for your Google account, and disable what you no longer wish them to track about you.
Thank you for posting this, I'm always concerned about my security on the internet. This is...really really creepy! I don't mind having certain information collected, but this seems unnecessary. However, I've never made a voice call, so I guess I don't need to worry about this, but I'm sure there are people who use that feature that will appreciate this!
To be more specific, this is when you use voice search, not simply making a phone call (though I wouldn't put that past Google or your wireless carrier either, if they were just flat out recording everything and passing it along to the NSA). Voice search is likely more common among mobile users, people on their phones who just want to speak in their search query to do a search on Google or bring up something on Google Maps. You can also use it on desktop systems too though - simply click on the microphone icon to the right of the search box when on Google and if your mic is turned on and working properly, it will recognize your voice command and you can speak in what you want to search for. On one hand, I'm fine with them analyzing my voice and speech patterns to make their voice recognition more accurate for me, as well as possibly using such recognition for security purposes (such as not letting a stranger use my phone). But I don't see why they can't simply make note of the tone of my voice and how I talk, then discard *what* it is I am searching for. It's kind of like, you can study someone's handwriting, but you don't need a record of every private thing they've ever written.
This is no surprise, but the hidden google settings as you state are very annoying. I was logging into a gmail account and it wouldn't let me access it unless I checked the boxes to allow them to track me. I tried to click 'continue' to not agree, but it wouldn't let me, so I checked allow to see if that would work and it did. I try not to use google when I can because of this, but it's hard to escape. I have never used my voice on anything and I do limit what I can. One of the reasons I loathe using chrome.
Same could be said for every big tech company out there. Facebook never deletes you conversations, posts and photos even if you remove them from your profile or delete your profile. Microsoft has the whole Windows 10 fiasco, but I'm 100% sure Google and Apple spy on its phone users even more. Some tech companies namely Lenovo install a spyware on their laptops. These days you'll be spied on and you can do nothing about it unless you pull the cord and go off-line permanently. And the governments won't do anything about it as they're interesting in acquiring data on their citizens.
I cannot really say that I am too surprised. Google is even bigger than facebook, and facebook can't help but invade our privacy through all of their applications, as well as with other methods. With how big Google is, can we really be surprised that they are capitalizing on this. I never do voice searches, ever, and for this very reason.
I don't trust much of anything on the internet or how our information is used, so if I don't want it out there, I don't say it/share it/post it etc etc. It's not so much that I care right now about how my voice or photos etc are used, but I do worry about who will have access at any point in the future and how THEY will use it (photos are already being used in ways I'm not comfortable with.. I can already see where it's headed). Also worried about hackers and, again, how they will use it. It's getting easier and easier to take advantage of consumers, but it's also getting easier to hack into people's lives for any number of reasons.. we're all open books on one level or another. All so we can access this world wide web.
I had no idea they did that kind of thing. Well luckily I do not use google voice. I always type everything out that I put into google. Thanks for sharing this though! It is good to know to inform others about it. My sister ALWAYS uses voice instead of typing. That is really weird though. I wonder what else is keeping tracks of everything.
The thing is though, when you tell people that their information is being used in these ways, and that these companies never had any intention of disclosing the ways in which the information is being used, people sense no threat in that. People don't care. They are often too eager to get their pictures and videos up on the internet so that they can accumulate likes, which isn't a problem. But I just would like people to be a bit more cautious.
Yes I know.. the zombie apocalypse started years ago now. You can dangle any number of shady goings on in front of the public.. give them all the transparency they claim they want.. then they turn around and give up their info anyway, because they need validation on Facebook or that coupon that saves them pennies etc. Give them transparency and they sit back down and wait for the next lie to uncover and ignore. What I see in society today, is exactly what I saw in that church crowd back when I was 12 and it scares the crap out of me.
This is very creepy! I would hate to know that my voice was being used in this fashion, but I'm also not the least bit surprised. I also never use google voice, so that's small comfort. Even though these brazen companies have so many ways of invading our privacy and collecting any information they want at will, some of which are probably so far advanced we don't even know about them! The thing that also scares me is face recognition technology. Thanks for sharing
That's not surprising at all, because Spy Shelter always alerts me when Google records my keysrokes when I do searches. Luckily you could disable that part where they record your searches, but I have a feeling the keep a back up copy of those searches somewhere for future reference. At least Yahoo isn't that intrusive.
Trust me, no matter how many boxes you untick, Google will always know more about you than they're supposed to. You've been exposed and you should know it. But trust me, just like freedom, privacy is a state of mind in this era of "information". People know more about you than you believe it, rest assured.
