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Gmail tracks the history of things you buy, and it’s hard to delete
- minimaxir 7y agoRelevant HN discussion about this behavior 7 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18090590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18090590 (I don't think this article is a dupe; current events have recontextualized the debate)
- suff 7y agoEven following the steps in the article, provided by Google, it is impossible to delete purchase history.
- ocdtrekkie 7y agoThe only way to do it is to go to each individual email that Purchases uses as a source and delete them from Gmail. I did it as part of moving all of that to FastMail, personally.
- arkitaip 7y agoI routinely revise my Google privacy settings across a bunch of different pages and I was totally unaware they tracked purchases by scanning email in Gmail. I don't see the value this offers to customers but I see why harvesting rich e-commerce data makes sense to Google.
- compiler-guy 7y agoI can see some value for those who want someone to automatically track what they buy. That may be useful for records, or reorders, or whatever. Seems likely to be useful for Google too in the way you describe, although it isn't clear to me how Google uses it.
- fjsolwmv 7y agoSure, maybe it could be useful. But why is it hidden where no one knows it's there to be used?
- RenRav 7y agoI smell a new service for backing up and then deleting the emails for you
- hiccuphippo 7y agoDoes Google really delete the full emails when you delete them? For example, if they used the content of an email to generate a profile to show you ads, do they reverse the process when you delete that email?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- amelius 7y agoI'd be interested to know if that is the case, perhaps someone can test it somehow.
- skybrian 7y agoAt least part of your Google ad profile is editable: https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated
- lotu 7y agoGmail was never used to serve ads outside of gmail. The use of email to serve ads was stopped in 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.html
- ProAm 7y agoJust pay for Fastmail, I finally did it and its so nice. Easily worth the money.
- poidos 7y ago+1 for Fastmail, great service.
- qrbLPHiKpiux 7y agoI like fastmail and I take full advantage of it all- including the webhosting.
- TheDong 7y agoBut then my flights don't automatically show up on my calendar, and my android phone can't notify me when a package is delivered. Why would I pay for something that gives me an inferior experience?
- minikites 7y agoHow long does it take you to add a flight to your calendar manually? A few seconds? Is your privacy worth those few seconds?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- UncleMeat 7y agoWhat loss of privacy? In both cases the contents of your email and stored on a disk and read into memory for processing.
- sib 7y agoI took 140 flights last year. I made a larger number than that of online purchases. Adding / tracking all that stuff manually is a pure waste of time.
- 7y ago
- fyoving 7y agoThey host your emails that is where this data comes from, if you don't like that then delete said emails. The media's modus operandi is to try and implicate tech companies with supposed violations whether it's justified or not, they will gain clicks and tarnish the reputation of a hated competitor, there are no drawbacks, they also keep perpetuating the notion that utility and invention must be sacrificed on the privacy altar.
- Johnny555 7y agoThey host your emails that is where this data comes from, if you don't like that then delete said emails. Deleting emails is no solution - Google has already scanned the email by the time it shows up in your mailbox.
- curiousguy 7y agoFor anyone thinking in leaving gmail, I recommend to get your own domain. For example: firstnamelastname.com This gives the flexibility of email provider. I did that 2 years ago and decided to go with Fastmail. And then I slowly updated my accounts/contacts to my new email: mail@firstnamelastname.com Nowdays I never get new emails on my gmail account and last weekend I decided to finally remove gmail from my phone (but configured to automatically forward just in case).
- FabHK 7y agoWhen you have your own domain, I suggest enabling a catch-all email. You can then make up a new email for every account ("hackernews@firstnamelastname.com"), enabling you to track where spam comes from, disabling certain emails, etc. migadu.com even offers reg-ex based catch-alls, pretty nifty. https://www.migadu.com/en/benefits.html#anchor_catchalls https://www.migadu.com/en/benefits.html#anchor_catchalls
- atoav 7y agoI want to elaborate a little further because I thought this might be unclear if you don't really know what a catch-all adress is: A catch-all adress is an adress where all emails of your domain that you didn't explicictly make a email adress for will land. So if you own foobar.eu and you made catchall@foobar.eu your catch-all adress, you could just make up arbitray email adresses on the spot (e.g. shady-online-service-x@foobar.com) and all mails that are sent to that adress will land in your catch-all adress. There are multiple cool things about this: - you can just block that adress if it annoys you - if you ever get spam and it is adressed to shady-online-service-x@foobar.com you know exactly who fucked with your data - you don't have to disclose your primary email adress to stranges, you can just make something up.
- tsjq 7y agothanks for adding that clarity. much helpful !
- monkey34 7y ago
- tantalor 7y agoWow next you're going to say my bank and credit card company tracks my purchases, too? Scary!
- mfer 7y agoIt's worth asking "why" companies would do these things. A credit card company can legitimately use fraud detection as a reason for looking at purchases. They can upsell budgeting software as another legit option people would accept. Why would Google be tracking this information? What use is it for them if they truely not doing it for ads? I was oddly reminded of the Selfish Ledger video that was leaked from Google... https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/17/17344250/google-x-selfish-ledger-video-data-privacy https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/17/17344250/google-x-selfish...
- pdkl95 7y agoFrom PBS Frontline's "United States Of Secrets" (part 2)[1]: LIZ FIGUEROA, (D) State Senator, CA, 1998-06: We walk into this room, and it’s myself and two of my staff— my chief of staff and one of my attorneys. And across from us was Larry, Sergey, and their attorney. All of a sudden, Sergey started talking to me. He said, “Senator, how would you feel if a robot went into your home and read your diary and read your financial records, read your love letters, read everything, but before leaving the house, it imploded?” And he said, “That’s not violating privacy.” I immediately said, “Of course it is. Yes, it is.” And he said, “No, it isn’t. Nothing’s kept. Nobody knows about it.” I said, “That robot has read everything. Does that robot know if I’m sad or if I’m feeling fear, or what’s happening?” And he looked at me and he said, “Oh, no. That robot knows a lot more than that.” If the robot really imploded without any benefit to Google, why were they paying to manufacture use it? If Google truly doesn't use the purchasing data to sell ads, why did they pay their expensive engineers to develop the tools to extract the data from email receipts? [1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/united-states-of-secrets/transcript/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/united-states-of-sec...
- joshuamorton 7y ago
- mehrdadn 7y agoCan someone explain what the point of deleting a purchase is? The email is still there, the data is still there... how is this affecting what Google does with your data?
- belltaco 7y agoIf there is no point then why does Google allow you to do it?
- mehrdadn 7y agoReduce clutter? Maybe you want to only remove some but not others? Let me turn the tables on you -- why doesn't Google have a button to delete all of them at once?
- hn23 7y agoA guess: They build a model of you as a customer. If you delete some information step by step then you possibly start with what bothers you most. So you do the data cleaning for them and train their algorithms. Not to mention that deletion is most likely just "hide this".
- adrianmonk 7y agoFrom a privacy point of view, there is no point at all in deleting the data. Assuming it was created from email, it can be re-created from email. Google has said they do not use the info in advertising or sell it to anyone else. Either you think they're telling the truth or you don't. If you think they're being truthful, there is no problem to solve here. If you think they are lying, then you'd be stupid to assume they won't recompute the data secretly without telling you. Either way, deleting the copy of the data that you can view accomplishes nothing.
- techntoke 7y agoYou can easily delete purchases here: https://myaccount.google.com/payments-and-subscriptions https://myaccount.google.com/payments-and-subscriptions However, I have a feeling that removing your Google history doesn't actually remove it, just prevents you from seeing it.
- alxlaz 7y agoJust for the fun of it, I figured I'd try to log in and see if Google has any info on stuff I've purchased. I'm over VPN so they insist this device isn't recognized (even though I've signed in from this exact machine, over this exact VPN connection, last week). Google helpfully offers to send me a security code over the phone. Even better, though, it has a "Can't use your phone?" option. You know what happens if you click that option? It takes you to a screen that says "You're trying to sign in on a device Google doesn't recognize. For your security, use your phone to show it's you signing in and not a hacker." and the only option on that screen is "Go back & use phone." I think there's a joke about how to understand recursion here but I can't quite put my finger on it yet.
- bitL 7y agoNow imagine you are one of those Googlers with a PhD hoping to change the world for the better and your PM asks you to work on those screens you mentioned...
- techntoke 7y agoI'd recommend removing your phone from here, and setting up 2-Step verification instead: https://myaccount.google.com/security https://myaccount.google.com/security
- goda90 7y agoYou can delete them one by one, but is there any way to delete them all, or turn off this tracking?
- JoshMnem 7y agoIt doesn't let me delete them without deleting the emails.
- integrate-this 7y agoGoogle has gotten to the point where it creeps me out. I've switched away from Chrome. I don't use their search engine unless I can't find the results on Bing or DuckDuckGo. I don't know if it's going to get to the point where it hurts their business (I'm just one person), but I'm to the point that targeted advertising is a really good way to make me not want to buy a product.
- jancsika 7y ago> I don't use their search engine unless I can't find the results on Bing or DuckDuckGo. Yeah but you still click the link to go to those sites in the search result, right?
- ne01 7y agoI second this. Try DuckDuckGo + FastMail and (Safari + Wipr extension for an advertisement free WWW) I too switched away after being a lifetime Google Advocate: Android, Chromebook, GCP, Linux + Chrome and many, many of their products. Honestly, I don't care about privacy that much I'm just sick and tired of how good Google became at distracting me! Never mind the ads and how I had to use incognito search for anything because if I searched something (e.g. buying a monitor) google keeps suggesting similar stuff to get my attention or suggesting articles on the homepage of Chrome (mostly android). What was once a simple beautiful tool to find answers, fast. became part of every aspect of my life, trying to get more and more of my attention/time. Time is gold. Google lost respect for my time and I lost respect for Google.
- jen729w 7y agoAgreed, and a quick shout to migadu.com for email. I’m a long time happy Fastmail customer but Migadu’s offering is interesting and different enough to have a look at.
- 52-6F-62 7y agoI’ve been hiding my time with Gmail. Planning my exit. Fastmail is a leading contender, but thanks for posting Migadu. It does sound interesting. They offer a lot for a low price, but I wonder how? I’m intrigued!
- javagram 7y agoI use all my mail through G Suite on a domain I own through a third party registrar. I logged into the link provided in the article and got a message “You don't have any purchases”. Maybe this feature isn’t available to me since I’m a G Suite user rather than a gmail user? I actually wouldn’t mind having this feature available, although I do keep google’s location history disabled.
- kevingadd 7y agoI can confirm it's not enabled (at least by default) for G Suite. I have email pass through a g suite account into a personal email account (so both accounts will see it) and the g suite account has no purchases history while the personal account has full history accurate up until yesterday.
- fjp 7y agoIt looks like it's just not very good at scraping my mail for purchases (which would be surprising) or it's just not showing me all of them. I have a junk Gmail account that I sign up for everything with - retail store loyalty programs, accounts on various retail websites, etc etc. I have had the address for 6+ years and it thinks I've only bought 7 things - some concert tickets, a pair of gloves, and a pair of shoes.
- soulnothing 7y agoI have both a G Suite email and regular @gmail.com address. I noted the same behavior you did. My custom domain no purchase history. Under gmail.com purchase history. Not sure if it can be enabled.
- jzl 7y agoI think this is because Google just doesn't do a lot of the data scraping in G Suite accounts that it does in gmail accounts. So I think it just doesn't have any stored "purchases" to show, rather the fact that the purchase interface doesn't work. I say this based on information I've read in the past about how G Suite / Google Apps accounts are treated. I hope this is the case, but am certainly not sure about it.
- burlesona 7y agoI would love to leave gmail but two things hold me back: 1. Archive export. This is the main thing, I've got a 15 year record of emails and now and then being able to search back to something that happened 5-10 years ago is a life-saver. Is there even a way to export your gmail archive? 2. What to replace it with? I've heard FastMail is a good alternative, and some people really like ProtonMail, but I've had a hard time evaluating services because it's not a trivial thing to set up and use an alternative email account, and I'm not sure what other than real daily use would be a valid test run.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- thekyle 7y ago> Is there even a way to export your gmail archive? 1. Use Google Takeout to download your emails as MBOX 2. Download your emails over SMTP or POP using an email client and import them into another email account. I believe Thunderbird can do this. 3. If you're switching to FastMail they have a import tool based on SMTP.
- cbhl 7y ago1. For export, takeout.google.com lets you export your emails in mbox format. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190 Third-party email services may also have flows for importing email from GMail, for example Microsoft Office 365: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/import-gmail-to-outlook-20fdb8f2-fed8-4b14-baf0-bf04b9c44bf7 https://support.office.com/en-us/article/import-gmail-to-out...
- reaperducer 7y agoI switched to Fastmail in January and it's been a good experience. It even has a link in the setup that imports your existing messages from GMail. I still have a couple of GMail accounts, and am surprised to report that in the last month, GMail has been getting more spam than Fastmail. Fastmail also has far fewer false positives. I recommend trying it. You can always switch bad.
- 7y ago
- reaperducer 7y agoI find this curious because I have been repeatedly told by Google people on HN that Google stopped reading GMail years ago.
- crazygringo 7y agoYeah... it was maybe one and a half years ago I think? But they stopped reading it for showing contextual ads. They're still reading it to show you useful information across Google properties, like in Google Maps the location of the theater you bought tickets to see a play to tonight. Removing that would be removing a useful features that people liked (unlike the ads).
- jgalt212 7y agothere's always a catch with these guys.
- jonny_eh 7y agoThey also read emails to catch spam and phishing attempts.
- ma2rten 7y agoThey also read emails to index them for search.
- JetSpiegel 7y agoEven though email search can't find anything. Ridiculous coming from Google.
- raverbashing 7y agoReally? I don't have a problem usually with gmail
- Brendinooo 7y agoSometimes Google seems totally unaware of why people might find this stuff discomforting.
- ganeshkrishnan 7y agoThey are absolutely aware. They banned my dev play account because few competitors reported as similar app and there is no human to view my case. They just stopped giving a shit. Funny, how all the senators talk about breaking up Facebook when Google is 100x bigger and 100x monopolistic. Break up Google. And unban my account in the process ;)
- buro9 7y agoWhere this gets weird is when the purchases are not yours. I own a first.last@gmail.com address and it turns out there are a lot of people who share that name. So when I started receiving emails for other people I just hit spam, until the day that wasn't enough. When I noticed that Google Assistant was telling me about flights and hotel bookings for other people who share my name whose email I'd long deleted. And is it possible to delete those things? To rid yourself of the various places the intelligent data emerges? Seemingly no. I found no way to stop being told about these actions relating to other people... constantly being shown PII relating to those other people (flight booking numbers, delivery addresses for things they'd ordered). I deleted and marked those emails as spam as much to ensure I wasn't receiving other people's PII... yet Google was "intelligently" preserving this and showing it back to me at every opportunity. Very frustrating, and it makes me wonder if I ever enter an email incorrectly where my personal data will end up. Edit: I couldn't even see the flights I've been prompted about recently on https://myaccount.google.com/purchases https://myaccount.google.com/purchases so I guess there are additional systems that have similar functionality.
- plif 7y agoThis happens to me all the time. My Gmail is first name and last initial. I'm not sure if the burden here is on Google or those sites that don't verify email address before sending stuff like this, though. The most fun so far for me was when someone used my email to sign up for Ashley Madison (the affair dating site). Of course, they were compromised a few years later and someone built a tool allowing you to search their users by email. Guess who appeared to be having an affair then? Tough one to explain to someone non technical...
- prepend 7y agoI sure if you just keep posting stories like this you will get enough cover to show your SO or potential SO that your version of events actually happened instead of what everyone assumes.
- cjcampbell 7y agoThere was a memorable period when one of my namesakes moved into the dorm for his freshman year of college. I was initially confused about the influx of a particular flavor of adult-oriented adverts until the textbook rental invoices started to arrive. This wasn’t the first time this kid had used my address, and my social media reconnaissance had revealed he was quite the little jerk. When I got those invoices with his parents contact info, there was a serious temptation to print out and mail a little care package of everything their baby boy had been up to. Alas, life was quite stressful at the time, and I never made the time to follow through.
- forrestthewoods 7y agoThis information is also scraped and sold by unscrupulous companies that you give access to your email. If you’ve ever let a service scrape your inbox for travel itineraries they probably read all your email ever and sold that information. Surprise!
- jgalt212 7y agoThey own up to this practice--albeit not the top link, at least for me. https://www.google.com/search?q=gmail+purchase+history https://www.google.com/search?q=gmail+purchase+history
- jvolkman 7y agoIt's not exactly hidden: https://www.google.com/search?q=my+purchases https://www.google.com/search?q=my+purchases
- gerash 7y agoThese stories have turned into click baits. The data in question here is nothing compared to what your credit card company, bank, Amazon or TurboTax has. Unlike many folks here I find value in this and can't see it harming my privacy. In fact I think Gmail is still dumb compared to what Google or maybe a startup could potentially provide. I'd love to be able to ask a query such as "show me the receipt for that red flower pot I bought last year" or "show me all my dentist appointments this year".
- bassman9000 7y agoYou're missing the point, and I would downvote you if I could. Google is accumulating data coming from purchases on 3rd party services, without having asked you to do so. You may be fine with that, some people are not, and on top of that, disabling that behavior and deleting the already accumulated data is difficult, or impossible. That's what the article is about.
- gerash 7y agoThe ones I mentioned (cc card, bank, TurboTax, etc.) are all data on third party services too.
- luckylion 7y agoI don't know how banks in the US work. Do they give you "helpful messages" about what you can do with the stuff you bought at $shop? Also, banks and credit card companies are highly regulated. Google is not. I guess it should be.
- human20190310 7y agoThe difference is that I know that the credit card company or Amazon is collecting my information because I'm directly involving them in the transaction. I thought I had all my Google privacy settings at "paranoid", but I did not know this was even occurring.
- 7y ago
- zwaps 7y agoWow, that never showed up in any privacy setting. Google is so evil. Is there any way other than deleting the account from stopping this? It says I have to delete the mails to delete the data, but I have already deleted the mails (as I usually do) and the data is still there! Including information like flights and purchases.
- OrgNet 7y agoIf you delete your history from Google, it only means that you aren't able to see it anymore in your account... Google keeps everything.
- crispinb 7y agoDo you have a source for that?
- nullc 7y agoIt's interesting to me that whenever someone responds that Gmail scans mail for advertising several google employees show up to fall all over themselves to deny it. But if you mention retention you get silence. I wouldn't be too shocked if no single human actually knows what the real retention behavior is for gmail.
- crispinb 7y agoAgree. And, yes, secrecy breeds suspicion. We should be suspicious of secretive organisations. But statements of fact go beyond suspicion, and surely require a basis in evidence.
- SquareWheel 7y ago>It's interesting to me that whenever someone responds that Gmail scans mail for advertising several google employees show up to fall all over themselves to deny it. But if you mention retention you get silence. You're not looking hard enough. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19863438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19863438
- crispinb 7y agoGood find, though I do tend to doubt mere company employee claims (lying is endemic to every corporation I've known from inside). In any case the user making the claim you link to came from a throwaway login.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jwr 7y agoI don't understand why people don't have a problem trusting Google with all their information (as is the case if you use Gmail). Even if you ignore the privacy implications and the fact that it's a company whose business is to target ads, there is still incompetence. Case in point: my YouTube history regularly gets mixed with somebody else's. I get videos watched by a child that likes Masha and the Bear and Peppa the Pig. Reported to YouTube a number of times, they seemingly ignored it and don't care. I turned off my history, but I still get recommendations for Masha and the Bear. Now, that purchase history of yours, who else gets to see it?
- jmole 7y agoLook at the difference between the emails you get from amazon today when you make a purchase, and several years ago. Today, this is what shows up: https://imgur.com/UF2YBVa https://imgur.com/UF2YBVa 5-6 years ago, here's what it looked like: https://imgur.com/lBWWkin https://imgur.com/lBWWkin Honestly, amazon has so much information about what I buy and why I buy it, I'm a little upset that I can't get these data from any retailer I shop at and import it into some software where I can actually look at what the trends are.
- calimac 7y agoIs there a list or mind map anywhere of all of the nefarious things google does? Most people reading this forum can spend the next three days talking about all the evil shit google does and Not even run out of things to say.
- charliebrownau 7y agoAnother LEFT WING MARKIST "woke" company that Censors Westerners Anti consumer Tracks users Steals data Sells data to third parties Works with Chinese Anti free speech
- bryanrasmussen 7y agowell I went and looked at it and realized I don't really buy very much online at all, but I was thinking - what about the invoices I send out - they should have that organized somewhere too.
- bwb 7y agoWhy do people care about this :)?
- beshrkayali 7y agoSame thing for your flights/hotel reservations btw via myaccount.google.com/reservations
- jlelse 7y agoJust setup your own mail server using mailcow for example. Pretty easy and awesome for privacy. I did it too: https://jlelse.blog/thoughts/2019/mail-server/ https://jlelse.blog/thoughts/2019/mail-server/
- squarefoot 7y agoI wish it was just the things I buy. All my Ebay sales and purchases get confirmation to my Google email, all bank reports come via email, and my doctor too uses a service to send my prescriptions to my gmail address. Recently someone at that service changed the way they operate so now I receive a link where I have to put my equivalent of SSN to download the prescriptions, so data theft while absolutely possible, in this case has to be deliberate. Still, the amount of personal information available for mining to Google and others is plain scary: I've seen with these eyes lawyers sending photos of sensitive documentation via Facebook or Whatsapp; that's even beyond stupid.
- smonff 7y agoIt's always amusing how people are shocked when stuff like are discovered, although Gmail is designed to serve those kind of things. This is a free service, and as a free service they have to make money with something. I don't see any problem with that. If you don't want this, don't use Gmail, there are lots of available alternatives.