Google launches Dashboard service, designed to show just how much the search engine giant knows about its users online activities, reports theregister.co.uk.

The service has been created to provide a summary of data associated with a specified Google account, where users will have the ability to view and manage data, ranging from search engine queries and emails sent through Gmail through to videos that have been watched on YouTube.

Users would normally have already consented to allow Google to record their online activities but it would be hard to establish now, just how much information Google has got on each person.

Google Dashboard has been designed to address privacy concerns over the search engine’s tendency to catalogue data, and is accessed by logging into a Google account – where surfers will then be provided with a list of the number of items held on specific services, for example; Calendars, Blogger, Shopper, Chat, and Gmail etc. The dashboard then links to the database information of these services providing more in depth information.

As suggested by theregister.co.uk – the Dashboard service does help to clarify just what Google knows about people’s online lives, however, it still doesn’t explain exactly how Google further uses this information. It is also pointed out that one thing not included in the run-down is cookie-based data which Google collects via its huge online ad-serving business.

While Google Dashboard holds a lot of potentially sensitive data, users are warned to use hard to guess (strong) passwords on their Gmail or other Google accounts!

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Source article;

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/05/google_privacy_dashboard/