Two Simple Steps to Take Control Over Google’s New Privacy Policy

Google’s new privacy policy takes effect Thursday. What’s new about it?

Now, it allows Google to integrate information it collects about you from all your Google accounts. So instead of treating your YouTube, Gmail and Google+ accounts as separate entities, Google now sees you as just one user. That should make it easier to target you with relevant ads.

But since Google first announced the change in a blog post on Jan. 24, the holistic approach has some made some people leery of the new privacy policy. France’s official data-protection agency has even launched an investigation to see whether the changes conflict with European privacy law.

If you think Google‘s new policy will let the company know too much about you, there are a couple of small steps you can take before Thursday to have some measure of control.

Clearing your Google History of web searches and pages visited won’t stop the company from collecting information about you. But it will prevent Google from sending you customized search results and will make the record of your searches and surfings partially anonymized after 18 months, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) advocacy group. You can also perform a similar maneuver with your YouTube search and viewing histories.

Here’s how to remove and disable your Google web history:

1. Sign in to your Google account.
2. Go here: https://www.google.com/history
3. Click the “Remove all Web History” button.
4. Click “OK.”
5. Your Google web history will now be cleared and remain disabled until you decide to enable it again.

Here’s how to cover your YouTube search and viewing tracks:

1. Sign in to your Google account.
2. Go here: https://www.youtube.com
3. Click your profile icon.
4. Go to the Video Manager section of your profile.
5. Click “History.”
6. Click the “Clear all viewing history” button.
7. Click the “Pause viewing history” button.
8. Go to the Search History section of your profile, located on the lefthand column.
9. Click the “Clear all search history button.”
10. Click the “Pause search history” button to prevent future searches from being recorded indefinitely.

Head over to the Electronic Frontier Foundation website for more extensive sets of instructions on how to remove your Google web and YouTube histories, replete with screenshots.

How do you feel about the new Google privacy policy that goes into effect on Thursday? Let us know in the comments.via[mashable]