topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Friday December 13, 2024, 4:24 am
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Author Topic: myactivity.google  (Read 4986 times)

Curt

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 7,566
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
myactivity.google
« on: March 07, 2017, 02:40 PM »
http://myactivity.google.com/ is the new place to go, if you want to have a look at what Google officially is recording of your data and behaviour. You can even delete it, they say.

---------------
Occasion:
I have not tried to check out the details, but ...:

The Danish consumer advisory organisation Tænk! has filed a lawsuit against Google for collecting and keeping personal, private data - which is not legal if the data goes beyond normal shopping / browsing behaviour. Further more Google is keeping the data "for ever", which also is not legal, once the purchase after some time is history only.

This was in Denmark. I don't know the relevant rules in 'your' country.

http://myactivity.google.com/

4wd

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 5,644
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: myactivity.google
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2017, 07:24 PM »
I have multiple Google accounts, only a couple show activity (the ones attached to my phone) - the rest have activity recording turned off and show nothing.

What they collect is controlled by the account holder (supposedly) so is this just another case of people not taking responsibility for their actions?
« Last Edit: March 07, 2017, 07:49 PM by 4wd »

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,778
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: myactivity.google
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2017, 08:09 PM »
I briefly perused my data and it showed about a million things saying something like "Set Alarms and Timers" on Android for my account.

In other words, for some reason the Clock app keeps phoning home several times per day saying I've changed things when I haven't. And who would expect their clock to make regular reports on them anyway?

4wd

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 5,644
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: myactivity.google
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2017, 10:14 PM »
I briefly perused my data and it showed about a million things saying something like "Set Alarms and Timers" on Android for my account.

In other words, for some reason the Clock app keeps phoning home several times per day saying I've changed things when I haven't. And who would expect their clock to make regular reports on them anyway?

You don't run a firewall on your Android devices?

Anything that I'm sure doesn't require net access to function doesn't get it - this includes a clock.

Shades

  • Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 2,939
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: myactivity.google
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2017, 11:06 PM »

You don't run a firewall on your Android devices?

Anything that I'm sure doesn't require net access to function doesn't get it - this includes a clock.

NTP is a good reason for a clock to access the internet...is it not?  But I agree on the general gist.

4wd

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 5,644
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: myactivity.google
« Reply #5 on: March 08, 2017, 12:22 AM »

You don't run a firewall on your Android devices?

Anything that I'm sure doesn't require net access to function doesn't get it - this includes a clock.

NTP is a good reason for a clock to access the internet...is it not?  But I agree on the general gist.

It's set to get the time from the mobile providers signal, it doesn't need NTP access to set the time on the phone - it's how it's worked since before smart phones were available.

If it were the other way around you would never have the correct time if you were international roaming, (unless you're rich and can afford global roaming data charges :-\).

Plus the service for accessing the time servers (NTP) is separate (I can individually block it in the firewall), the clock gets the time from the system, there's no real reason for it to be accessing the Internet.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2017, 12:52 AM by 4wd »

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,778
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: myactivity.google
« Reply #6 on: March 08, 2017, 01:35 AM »
NTP is a good reason for a clock to access the internet...is it not?  But I agree on the general gist.

I'm talking about the Clock app, which allows you to set alarms, see the current time in different time zones, have cooking (countdown) timers, as well as sports (count up) timers. All of those features should run on the local system time.