Don't be evil
30 minModerate“Don't be evil” sat at the top of Google's code of conduct for years. In 2018 it was quietly demoted to the last line, and Alphabet's version reads “do the right thing.” Read whatever you like into that — the practical point is that no other company holds a comparable record of what you searched, watched, wrote, and where you physically went.
This guide is not “delete Google.” For most people that's neither realistic nor necessary. It's about knowing what's collected, turning off the parts you never agreed to in any meaningful sense, and keeping the parts you actually want.
Give Google credit where it's due. Its account security is among the best in the industry — Advanced Protection with hardware keys is genuinely excellent, and free. The concern here isn't that your Google account gets broken into. It's how much is inside it, and who else can compel access to it. Those are different problems and this guide only addresses the second.
Step 1 — Look at what they have
Do this before changing any settings. It's the part that makes people act.
- myactivity.google.com — every search, every YouTube video, every app you opened on Android, timestamped. Scroll back a few years.
- timeline.google.com — where you physically were, by day, sometimes to the minute. This is the one that startles people.
- myadcenter.google.com — the profile inferred from all of it: your assumed age, income bracket, relationship status, employer size, interests.
- takeout.google.com — export the whole archive. Ask for Location History and Search first; it can be gigabytes.
Step 2 — Turn off the collection
All of these live at myaccount.google.com/data-and-privacy. Turning a setting off stops future logging; it doesn't delete the past, so do both.
- Web & App Activity — off, or on with auto-delete after 3 months. This is the big one; it covers search, Assistant, and Android app usage.
- Location History / Timeline — off. Maps still works perfectly without it. Newer Android versions store this on-device instead, which is better, but check it's not also syncing.
- YouTube History — auto-delete after 3 months. Recommendations get worse; that is arguably the point.
- Ad personalization — off in My Ad Center. You'll see the same number of ads, just less precisely aimed.
- Set auto-delete on everything that stays on. Three months is the shortest option and it's plenty for the "what was that restaurant" use case.
- Prune third-party access. At myaccount.google.com/connections, revoke every app you don't currently use. Some of these have had read access to your Gmail for years.
- Turn off "Results about you" surprises — actually, do the opposite here: switch on Google's Results About You alerts, which notify you when your phone number, address, or email shows up in search results. It's a free doxxing early-warning system. See the harassment guide.
Step 3 — Move the highest-value things off
You don't have to migrate everything. Ranked by how much you gain per unit of hassle:
- Search → DuckDuckGo or Startpage. Thirty seconds, and it removes the single richest stream. Startpage returns Google's results without the profiling if you don't like DuckDuckGo's.
- Browser → Firefox. Chrome is built by an advertising company; that shapes every default it ships.
- Email → Proton or Fastmail. The biggest win and the biggest hassle, because your address is your identity online. Do it slowly: new account, forward the old one, migrate services as they email you.
- Maps → Organic Maps or Apple Maps for navigation. Google Maps remains better for finding businesses; using it while logged out is a reasonable compromise.
- Docs/Drive — the least urgent unless the documents themselves are sensitive. Proton Drive or a synced folder with local encryption if they are.
Step 4 — If you use Android
- Delete your advertising ID (Settings → Privacy → Ads). This is a real off switch, not a reset.
- Audit app permissions, and set location to while using the app everywhere it's offered.
- Turn off Google Location Accuracy and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth scanning if you don't need them.
- Going further means GrapheneOS on a Pixel — genuinely private, and a real commitment. Don't start here.
What to keep
Turn on 2-Step Verification, or Advanced Protection if you're a journalist, activist, or a plausible target. Keep using Security Checkup. Google's ability to detect account compromise is better than almost anything you'd replace it with, and a locked-down Google account you actually monitor beats a self-hosted mail server you don't.
The goal isn't purity. It's that the record shrinks from “everything, forever” to “the last three months, of the things I chose.”
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How to request deletion of your data
The letters that actually work, with templates you can paste.
30 minModerate