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Reduce Data Sent to Google – Increase Privacy

March 22, 2021

It should be no secret that we send a ton of data to our technology providers such as Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon and many others. There are some things you can do to reduce the amount of data you share with others. If you are an Android user, Android Police has a post to help you enhance the privacy on your Android phone.

If you are running Android 10 or 11, just go to the Privacy section in the Settings and select what information you want to share. If not, you will have to find where to set the specific type of data to share or not to share. Location History and Tracking is a big one. My default is to turn off location services and only turn it on when I need location services for an app such as Google Maps. Android 10 and higher users can also turn off the ability for apps to track your location in the background. This setting has less impact if you normally keep your location services turned off.

The post has other suggestions such as turning off backups (not sure that’s a good idea). At least use a third-party product for backups. Using a browser other than Chrome will also reduce the amount of data you send to Google. My favorite suggestion is to turn on two-factor authentication (2FA) for all accounts.

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