People search for almost anything on the web. Google as one of the primary destinations for those people, is introducing an update to appeal privacy concerned users.
Founder and CEO of DuckDuckGo Gabriel Weinberg once said that search data is the most personal data. When it comes to that statement, Google as the search engine giant that processes billions of queries per day, is indeed having the most personal data on the planet.
Google acknowledges that not all Google users update their privacy controls, as the Google Account page (https://myaccount.google.com) is somehow uncommon for most people, with more others finding it confusing. This is why Google starts allowing users to delete their search activities, and to also control the ads they see, directly from Google Search home page.
This ability is present on both desktop and mobile web, as well as from the Google Search app.
As long as users have already signed in into their Google account, in which Google will keep a log of their online activities by default, users can access their search data without having to go to their Google Account page. Google is even making the experience easier on mobile, with a persistent menu item called 'Your data in Search' directly accessible from the home page as well as the results pages.
For users, this is certainly a good thing. Especially to those privacy concerned individuals, the ability can indeed make Google a better search engine.
But this update may not appeal search marketers.
Since the news about Facebook - Cambridge Analytica scandal broke out, and later with the launch of the EU's GDPR legislation, Google and other popular online services have been forced to pay more attention to users' personal data, and how they can store them. Those companies are also forced to be more transparent about how they use those data for ad targeting purposes.
The update from Google is a step towards the right direction when it comes to user privacy. But for advertisers, this would impact them in a couple of ways:
First, with Google users having an easier way to delete their search data, this makes it more difficult for advertisers to target them with the most appropriate ads. Since Google has less data about users' search data, the company's advertising service wouldn't be able to fetch enough data as it previously can.
With users controlling what Google knows, they can potentially limit the available ad targeting data Google has on them. As a result, ads that are shown to those users, may not be as targeted as they were before.
Second, with users having the ability to control the ads they see directly from Google's home page, they can also quickly control and react to the ads they see. For example, if in scenarios users see ads they dislike, they can quickly forbid Google from showing those ads to them again.
"To control the ads you see when you search, we give you access to your Ad Settings. Additionally, you can access your Activity Controls to decide what information Google saves to your account and uses to make Search and other Google services faster, smarter and more useful," explained Eric Miraglia, Google’s director of product management.
But, whether or not such efforts will impact advertisers, depend on how users respond the the these privacy tools.
On the good side, such controls would make advertisers avoid serving ads to unresponsive audience. Therefore, they have to focus on creating ads to more receptive individuals.