Google Now is of course, an intelligent virtual voice-controlled assistant developed by Google, and competes in the market against Siri from Apple and Cortana from Microsoft. Users of the feature may or may not be familiar with the fact that the search giant records and stores absolutely every little voice search request from all its users. While the feature can be turned off by tweaking some settings on a webpage custom-made by Google for the purpose, the page isn’t exactly advertised with any amount of zeal by the Mountain View, California-based search giant. Visiting that particular webpage while logged into one’s Google account should give users access to their entire search history not just on Google Now, but also on YouTube along with the general search history on Google’s web-based search engine as well as the Google Search mobile application, alongside all location-based data gathered from apps like Google Maps etc.
In case you’re wondering how to find out – and indeed delete – what Google has been collecting on you, all you need to do, is visit this particular link after logging into your Google account. The link will allow you to manage your privacy in terms of YouTube, Google search, and location history. From there, you may just choose to disable every single option including YouTube and Google Now, if you don’t feel like you want Google to keep track of what exactly you’ve been up to on the net, while being logged into your Google account. Once you ask Google to stop further chronicling your activity (voice or otherwise), you’ll be immediately warned that merely stopping Google from registering your activity won’t automatically delete all your previously-recorded search history, including all prior queries spoken into Google Now. To do that, you’ll need to visit yet another link provided by Google upon choosing to put an end to Google’s methodical cataloging of your online search queries – voice or otherwise. There, you’ll find the option to delete all your previous activity either en masse or selectively.
It is however important to remember that while stopping Google from linking your activity to your account may mean the search giant will no longer link your searches to you directly, it won’t stop the company from actually recording whatever it is that you’re doing on the net. The safest bet to preserve your privacy and not leave any trace locally on your computer or mobile is to use the private browsing mode on your browser. As for Google Now, the voice recorder will continue to record your voice, according to Google, but only anonymously, meaning, your queries won’t be linked to your account, and won’t show up on your search results.