Google driving 'password-free future' with new privacy features

At Google I/O the company said it will be stepping up its privacy options in its apps and services including an option to delete your last search query, with an ultimate goal of eliminating user passwords.

Google took a portion of its Google I/O keynote to tout its privacy credentials, including changes it is introducing to its products and services to improve user safety online.

In 2019, Google added a feature to its accounts to limit how long it saves information about users, and to automatically delete it. During Tuesday's keynote for Google I/O, the company said it has now made Auto-delete active by default for new accounts, and is currently operational for 2 billion accounts.

As part of its attempt to head to a "password-free future," Google is improving its password manager with four upgrades. The first is a simplified onboarding process, where users can import passwords from other password managers.

Deeper integration between Chrome and Android is also promised, so passwords can be used across both websites and apps. Automatic password alerts will advise when compromised passwords are discovered in a third-party breach.

A quick-fix feature in Chrome will help navigate users to those compromised accounts, to change the password as quickly as possible.

Google is also touting how its products are "Private by design," with engineers constantly asking "when, how, and why" personal data is used in its products. "Including for data that is used for ads."

The search company assured it never sells such data to third parties, doesn't use data stored by users in its products to serve ads, and never uses sensitive information in such a way.

Google is also collaborating with organizations on the Privacy Sandbox, an open-source initiative that is trying to kill off cookies in favor of new solutions that retains the privacy of users.

There is also the claim that Google has scaled the use of Differential Privacy, the concept of aggregating data to eliminate the ability to identify individuals, more than anyone else. To help developers with it, Google produced the "world's largest open-source library of differentially-private algorithms.

To give users more control over their data and privacy, Google stressed the presence of privacy controls in the Google Account, as well as app-based features like Chrome's incognito mode.

New features are also on the way, including the ability to delete the last 15 minutes of search history from their account. This is done by tapping the account profile picture on the Google search pages.

Google Maps will also warn users that they will see their recently or often-viewed locations because the user has Location History turned on, with the option to turn it off within their timeline.

Google Photos for Android devices is also gaining a locked folder, a password-protected folder saved separately from the rest of their collection. The images won't show up when scrolling through the app casually, or on any other apps on the device.

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7 Comments

mcdave 1927 comments · 19 Years

About 3 years ago

Your data, our password.

“ The search company assured it never sells such data to third parties, doesn't use data stored by users in its products to serve ads, and never uses sensitive information in such a way.”

WTF how else does that company make its money? Get them to state this in a court of law.

Xed 2871 comments · 4 Years

mcdave said:

“ The search company assured it never sells such data to third parties, doesn't use data stored by users in its products to serve ads, and never uses sensitive information in such a way.”

WTF how else does that company make its money? Get them to state this in a court of law.

If they did that then they would be giving their secret sauce away to competitors. What they do is record and aggrebgate your user data so you can be targeted in ads, but by the time it gets to you as an ad it's technically not selling data stored by users to serve those ads.

Ultimately it's the same thing, kinda like when a mob boss's lawyer is trying to get their client off by claiming they weren't even in the same location so they couldn't have committed the crime even though they clearly ordered it.

DAalseth 3033 comments · 6 Years

mcdave said:

“ The search company assured it never sells such data to third parties, doesn't use data stored by users in its products to serve ads, and never uses sensitive information in such a way.”

WTF how else does that company make its money? Get them to state this in a court of law.

I wondered the same thing on an earlier article. I was told that Google doesn’t sell the search data or the dossier itself. Companies come to it and pay them to place ads with users that have interests in X, Y, or Z. This is why when you search for a car for example, almost instantly car ads will appear wherever you go. The advertisers aren’t placing them, Google is based on their requests for people who fit a template, ie someone searching for a car.

gatorguy 24608 comments · 13 Years

DAalseth said:

mcdave said:

“ The search company assured it never sells such data to third parties, doesn't use data stored by users in its products to serve ads, and never uses sensitive information in such a way.”

WTF how else does that company make its money? Get them to state this in a court of law.

I wondered the same thing on an earlier article. I was told that Google doesn’t sell the search data or the dossier itself. Companies come to it and pay them to place ads with users that have interests in X, Y, or Z. This is why when you search for a car for example, almost instantly car ads will appear wherever you go. The advertisers aren’t placing them, Google is based on their requests for people who fit a template, ie someone searching for a car.

You could repeat that a hundred times and still have those who struggle with understanding the concept and won't accept that it's true despite any evidence whatsoever that it is not.