Google’s Upcoming Privacy Boosting Features Announced in I/O 2019

• Google’s I/O 2019 has unveiled the company’s ambitious plans for user privacy.
• All Google products will receive several game-changing options that will be easy to access.

As Google’s 2019 I/O (yearly developer conference) is underway, the company has announced several new privacy-focused features that are to be gradually rolled out to the billions of Android smartphones and tablets out there. As we have discussed last week, Google is under enormous pressure to immediately boost the privacy-related options that they offer to the users of their products, so it’s good to see that this pressure is forcing positive results. Here are the most important new privacy features from the users’ perspective that were announced by Google in yesterday’s keynote:

• Chrome will let users control the cookies that follow their online activities. Blocking them or clearing them will get as easy as the clicking of a button.
• Google ads will now be justified, as people will be able to check the details behind the serving algorithm through the “Why this Ad” and switch off individual factors that play a role in this cherry-picking process.
• All Google products (Maps, Drive, Gmail, Pay, etc.) will allow users “one-tap access” to their Google Account. There, people will find all of the privacy and security settings in one place, offering on/off switches for each option.

• Data management will get more straight-forward, with Google Search letting users review their recent activity, delete what doesn’t need to be there, and learn more about how the search results generation works in relation to your data.
• All Google apps will now offer an “incognito mode”, and it will work like in Chrome. For example, Google Maps and Google Search will soon support using them without storing any data. This mode will be toggled through the options of the apps, and won’t be session-based like in Chrome.

• The auto-delete of the user Location History and Web data is already rolling out, as we presented the relevant details last week. Google promises to have this feature released for everyone by the end of next month.
• More machine learning and predictive computation will take the place of extensive data gathering and storing, with Google following a new approach to offering the same or even a heightened level of tailored and helpful suggestions while respecting their users’ privacy. This machine training will take place without memorizing information that could reveal sensitive information about the user.
• Google’s writing assistance solutions will now use a galore of data coming from millions of anonymous users instead of consistently tracking what you are typing.

Are you excited about what’s about to come in Google’s products this year? Let us know in the comments down below, and help us spread the word by sharing this post through our socials, on Facebook and Twitter.