Google 'Account Activity' Jumps Into Personal Analytics 64
An anonymous reader tips news of a new feature announced by Google today: Account Activity. Writing on their official blog, Google's Andreas Tuerk said, "If you sign up, each month we’ll send you a link to a password-protected report with insights into your signed-in use of Google services. For example, my most recent Account Activity report told me that I sent 5 percent more email than the previous month and received 3 percent more. An Italian hotel was my top Gmail contact for the month. I conducted 12 percent more Google searches than in the previous month, and my top queries reflected the vacation I was planning: [rome] and [hotel]." You may remember from earlier this month that Stephen Wolfram began showing some of the extensive personal analytics data he has collected over the past 20 years.
Re:this is how it begins (Score:5, Informative)
News Flash.... Google is collecting this information whether you choose to receive it or not.
If anything, this type of service will raise user's awareness of just how much companies like Google know about you.
Re:this is how it begins (Score:5, Informative)
Google has a strong history of not selling personal information. They use it to deliver ads, but they don't expose individual data to the advertisers.
Kids these days don't realize how much better it is. In the old days all of the top 10 ad companies would sell all your private info to to anybody. Google has changed the game and changed the level of privacy and transparency people expect in all the online services.