Google to turn on activity tracking for many users who turned it off

947 points

4 years ago

I received an email from Google yesterday that communicated, with much obfuscation, the following key points:

- The “Web & App Activity” setting for Google Workspace users will be ignored by Gmail, Drive, Docs, Calendar, Chat, Meet, Keep, and several other services.

- Tracking for these services will be controlled by a new user setting, “Google Workspace Search History”, which will default to on regardless of the user’s Web & App Activity setting.

- The ability of Google Workspace organizations to turn off “Web & App Activity” for all users will be removed.

- These changes will take effect on 2022-03-29.

Full email text: https://pastebin.com/raw/5ayJTDDp

More info from Google: https://support.google.com/a/answer/11194328

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