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Fall asleep as we read the Google Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
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Today we are reading Google's Terms of Service Agreement as of January 4th 2022, as well as their privacy policy.
Effective January 5, 2022
Country version: United States
What’s covered in these terms
We know it’s tempting to skip these Terms of Service, but it’s important to establish what you can expect from us as you use Google services, and what we expect from you.
These Terms of Service reflect the way Google’s business works, the laws that apply to our company, and certain things we’ve always believed to be true. As a result, these Terms of Service help define Google’s relationship with you as you interact with our services. For example, these terms include the following topic headings:
What you can expect from us, which describes how we provide and develop our services
What we expect from you, which establishes certain rules for using our services
Content in Google services, which describes the intellectual property rights to the content you find in our services — whether that content belongs to you, Google, or others
In case of problems or disagreements, which describes other legal rights you have, and what to expect in case someone violates these terms
Understanding these terms is important because, by using our services, you’re agreeing to these terms.
Besides these terms, we also publish a Privacy Policy. We encourage you to read it to better understand how you can update, manage, export, and delete your information.
Terms
Service provider
Google services are provided by, and you’re contracting with:
Google LLC
organized under the laws of the State of Delaware, USA, and operating under the laws of the USA
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, California 94043
USA
Age requirements
If you’re under the age required to manage your own Google Account, you must have your parent or legal guardian’s permission to use a Google Account. Please have your parent or legal guardian read these terms with you.
If you’re a parent or legal guardian, and you allow your child to use the services, then these terms apply to you and you’re responsible for your child’s activity on the services.
Some Google services have additional age requirements as described in their service-specific additional terms and policies.
These terms help define the relationship between you and Google. Broadly speaking, we give you permission to use our services if you agree to follow these terms, which reflect how Google’s business works and how we earn money. When we speak of “Google,” “we,” “us,” and “our,” we mean Google LLC and its affiliates.
What you can expect from us
Provide a broad range of useful services
We provide a broad range of services that are subject to these terms, including:
apps and sites (like Search and Maps)
platforms (like Google Shopping)
integrated services (like Maps embedded in other companies’ apps or sites)
devices (like Google Nest)
Many of these services also include content that you can stream or interact with.
Our services are designed to work together, making it easier for you to move from one activity to the next. For example, if your Calendar event includes an address, you can click on that address and Maps can show you how to get there.
Develop, improve, and update Google services
We’re constantly developing new technologies and features to improve our services. For example, we use artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide you with simultaneous translations, and to better detect and block spam and malware. As part of this continual improvement, we sometimes add or remove features and functionalities, increase or decrease limits to our services, and start offering new services or stop offering old ones. When a service requires or includes downloadable software, that software sometimes updates automatically on your device once a new version or feature is available. Some services let you adjust your automatic update settings.
If we make material changes that negatively impact your use of our services or if we stop offering a service, we’ll provide you with reasonable advance notice, except in urgent situations such as preventing abuse, responding to legal requirements, or addressing security and operability issues. We’ll also provide you with an opportunity to export your content from your Google Account using Google Takeout, subject to applicable law and policies.
What we expect from you
Follow these terms and service-specific additional terms
The permission we give you to use our services continues as long as you comply with:
these terms
service-specific additional terms, which could, for example, include things like additional age requirements
You also agree that our Privacy Policy applies to your use of our services. Additionally, we provide resources like the Copyright Help Center, Safety Center, and descriptions of our technologies from our policies site to answer common questions and to set expectations about using our services.
Although we give you permission to use our services, we retain any intellectual property rights we have in the services.
Respect others
We want to maintain a respectful environment for everyone, which means you must follow these basic rules of conduct:
comply with applicable laws, including export control, sanctions, and human trafficking laws
respect the rights of others, including privacy and intellectual property rights
don’t abuse or harm others or yourself (or threaten or encourage such abuse or harm) — for example, by misleading, defrauding, illegally impersonating, defaming, bullying, harassing, or stalking others
don’t abuse, harm, interfere with, or disrupt the services — for example, by accessing or using them in fraudulent or deceptive ways, introducing malware, or spamming, hacking, or bypassing our systems or protective measures. When we index the web to bring you search results, we respect standard usage restrictions that website owners specify in their websites’ code, so we require the same when others use our services
Our service-specific additional terms and policies provide additional details about appropriate conduct that everyone using those services must follow. If you find that others aren’t following these rules, many of our services allow you to report abuse. If we act on a report of abuse, we also provide the process described in the Taking action in case of problems section.
Permission to use your content
Some of our services are designed to let you upload, submit, store, send, receive, or share your content. You have no obligation to provide any content to our services and you’re free to choose the content that you want to provide. If you choose to upload or share content, please make sure you have the necessary rights to do so and that the content is lawful.
License
Your content remains yours, which means that you retain any intellectual property rights that you have in your content. For example, you have intellectual property rights in the creative content you make, such as reviews you write. Or you may have the right to share someone else’s creative content if they’ve given you their permission.
We need your permission if your intellectual property rights restrict our use of your content. You provide Google with that permission through this license.
What’s covered
This license covers your content if that content is protected by intellectual property rights.
What’s not covered
This license doesn’t affect your privacy rights — it’s only about your intellectual property rights
This license doesn’t cover these types of content:
publicly-available factual information that you provide, such as corrections to the address of a local business. That information doesn’t require a license because it’s considered common knowledge that everyone’s free to use.
feedback that you offer, such as suggestions to improve our services. Feedback is covered in the Service-related communications section below.
Scope
This license is:
worldwide, which means it’s valid anywhere in the world
non-exclusive, which means you can license your content to others
royalty-free, which means there are no monetary fees for this license
Rights
This license allows Google to:
host, reproduce, distribute, communicate, and use your content — for example, to save your content on our systems and make it accessible from anywhere you go
publish, publicly perform, or publicly display your content, if you’ve made it visible to others
modify and create derivative works based on your content, such as reformatting or translating it
sublicense these rights to:
other users to allow the services to work as designed, such as enabling you to share photos with people you choose
our contractors who’ve signed agreements with us that are consistent with these terms, only for the limited purposes described in the Purpose section below
Purpose
This license is for the limited purpose of:
operating and improving the services, which means allowing the services to work as designed and creating new features and functionalities. This includes using automated systems and algorithms to analyze your content:
for spam, malware, and illegal content
to recognize patterns in data, such as determining when to suggest a new album in Google Photos to keep related photos together
to customize our services for you, such as providing recommendations and personalized search results, content, and ads (which you can change or turn off in Ads Settings)
This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored.
using content you’ve shared publicly to promote the services. For example, to promote a Google app, we might quote a review you wrote. Or to promote Google Play, we might show a screenshot of the app you offer in the Play Store.
developing new technologies and services for Google consistent with these terms
Duration
This license lasts for as long as your content is protected by intellectual property rights.
If you remove from our services any content that’s covered by this license, then our systems will stop making that content publicly available in a reasonable amount of time. There are two exceptions:
If you already shared your content with others before removing it. For example, if you shared a photo with a friend who then made a copy of it, or shared it again, then that photo may continue to appear in your friend’s Google Account even after you remove it from your Google Account.
If you make your content available through other companies’ services, it’s possible that search engines, including Google Search, will continue to find and display your content as part of their search results.
Using Google services
Your Google Account
If you meet these age requirements you can create a Google Account for your convenience. Some services require that you have a Google Account in order to work — for example, to use Gmail, you need a Google Account so that you have a place to send and receive your email.
You’re responsible for what you do with your Google Account, including taking reasonable steps to keep your Google Account secure, and we encourage you to regularly use the Security Checkup.
Using Google services on behalf of an organization or business
Many organizations, such as businesses, non-profits, and schools, take advantage of our services. To use our services on behalf of an organization:
an authorized representative of that organization must agree to these terms
your organization’s administrator may assign a Google Account to you. That administrator might require you to follow additional rules and may be able to access or disable your Google Account.
Service-related communications
To provide you with our services, we sometimes send you service announcements and other information. To learn more about how we communicate with you, see Google’s Privacy Policy.
If you choose to give us feedback, such as suggestions to improve our services, we may act on your feedback without obligation to you.
Content in Google services
Your content
Some of our services give you the opportunity to make your content publicly available — for example, you might post a product or restaurant review that you wrote, or you might upload a blog post that you created.
See the Permission to use your content section for more about your rights in your content, and how your content is used in our services
See the Removing your content section to learn why and how we might remove user-generated content from our services
If you think someone is infringing your intellectual property rights, you can send us notice of the infringement and we’ll take appropriate action. For example, we suspend or close the Google Accounts of repeat copyright infringers as described in our Copyright Help Center.
Google content
Some of our services include content that belongs to Google — for example, many of the visual illustrations you see in Google Maps. You may use Google’s content as allowed by these terms and any service-specific additional terms, but we retain any intellectual property rights that we have in our content. Don’t remove, obscure, or alter any of our branding, logos, or legal notices. If you want to use our branding or logos, please see the Google Brand Permissions page.
Other content
Finally, some of our services give you access to content that belongs to other people or organizations — for example, a store owner’s description of their own business, or a newspaper article displayed in Google News. You may not use this content without that person or organization’s permission, or as otherwise allowed by law. The views expressed in other people or organizations’ content are theirs, and don’t necessarily reflect Google’s views.
Software in Google services
Some of our services include downloadable software. We give you permission to use that software as part of the services.
The license we give you is:
worldwide, which means it’s valid anywhere in the world
non-exclusive, which means that we can license the software to others
royalty-free, which means there are no monetary fees for this license
personal, which means it doesn’t extend to anyone else
non-assignable, which means you’re not allowed to assign the license to anyone else
Some of our services include software that’s offered under open source license terms that we make available to you. Sometimes there are provisions in the open source license that explicitly override parts of these terms, so please be sure to read those licenses.
You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, or lease any part of our services or software.
In case of problems or disagreements
Warranty disclaimer
We built our reputation on providing useful, reliable services like Google Search and Maps, and we’re continuously improving our services to meet your needs. However, for legal purposes, we offer our services without warranties unless explicitly stated in our service-specific additional terms. The law requires that we explain this using specific legal language and that we use capital letters to help make sure you see it, as follows:
TO THE EXTENT ALLOWED BY APPLICABLE LAW, WE PROVIDE OUR SERVICES “AS IS” WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. FOR EXAMPLE, WE DON’T MAKE ANY WARRANTIES ABOUT THE CONTENT OR FEATURES OF THE SERVICES, INCLUDING THEIR ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, OR ABILITY TO MEET YOUR NEEDS.
Liabilities
For all users
Both the law and these terms try to strike a balance as to what you or Google can claim from the other in case of problems. That’s why the law allows us to limit certain liabilities — but not others — under these terms.
These terms only limit our responsibilities as allowed by applicable law. These terms don’t limit liability for gross negligence or willful misconduct.
To the extent allowed by applicable law:
Google is liable only for its breaches of these terms or applicable service-specific additional terms
Google isn’t liable for:
loss of profits, revenues, business opportunities, goodwill, or anticipated savings
indirect or consequential losses
punitive damages
Google’s total liability arising out of or relating to these terms is limited to the greater of (1) $200 or (2) the fees paid to use the relevant services in the 12 months before the dispute
For business users and organizations only
If you’re a business user or organization:
To the extent allowed by applicable law, you’ll indemnify Google and its directors, officers, employees, and contractors for any third-party legal proceedings (including actions by government authorities) arising out of or relating to your unlawful use of the services or violation of these terms or service-specific additional terms. This indemnity covers any liability or expense arising from claims, losses, damages, judgments, fines, litigation costs, and legal fees.
If you’re legally exempt from certain responsibilities, including indemnification, then those responsibilities don’t apply to you under these terms. For example, the United Nations enjoys certain immunities from legal obligations and these terms don’t override those immunities.
Taking action in case of problems
Before taking action as described below, we’ll provide you with advance notice when reasonably possible, describe the reason for our action, and give you an opportunity to fix the problem, unless doing so would:
cause harm or liability to a user, third party, or Google
violate the law or a legal enforcement authority’s order
compromise an investigation
compromise the operation, integrity, or security of our services
Removing your content
If any of your content (1) breaches these terms, service-specific additional terms or policies, (2) violates applicable law, or (3) could harm our users, third parties, or Google, then we reserve the right to take down some or all of that content in accordance with applicable law. Examples include child pornography, content that facilitates human trafficking or harassment, terrorist content, and content that infringes someone else’s intellectual property rights.
Suspending or terminating your access to Google services
Google reserves the right to suspend or terminate your access to the services or delete your Google Account if any of these things happen:
you materially or repeatedly breach these terms, service-specific additional terms or policies
we’re required to do so to comply with a legal requirement or a court order
your conduct causes harm or liability to a user, third party, or Google — for example, by hacking, phishing, harassing, spamming, misleading others, or scraping content that doesn’t belong to you
For more information about why we disable accounts and what happens when we do, see this Help Center page. If you believe your Google Account has been suspended or terminated in error, you can appeal.
Of course, you’re always free to stop using our services at any time. If you do stop using a service, we’d appreciate knowing why so that we can continue improving our services.
Settling disputes, governing law, and courts
For information about how to contact Google, please visit our contact page.
California law will govern all disputes arising out of or relating to these terms, service-specific additional terms, or any related services, regardless of conflict of laws rules. These disputes will be resolved exclusively in the federal or state courts of Santa Clara County, California, USA, and you and Google consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts.
About these terms
By law, you have certain rights that can’t be limited by a contract like these terms of service. These terms are in no way intended to restrict those rights.
These terms describe the relationship between you and Google. They don’t create any legal rights for other people or organizations, even if others benefit from that relationship under these terms.
We want to make these terms easy to understand, so we’ve used examples from our services. But not all services mentioned may be available in your country.
If these terms conflict with the service-specific additional terms, the additional terms will govern for that service.
If it turns out that a particular term is not valid or enforceable, this will not affect any other terms.
If you don’t follow these terms or the service-specific additional terms, and we don’t take action right away, that doesn’t mean we’re giving up any rights that we may have, such as taking action in the future.
We may update these terms and service-specific additional terms (1) to reflect changes in our services or how we do business — for example, when we add new services, features, technologies, pricing, or benefits (or remove old ones), (2) for legal, regulatory, or security reasons, or (3) to prevent abuse or harm.
If we materially change these terms or service-specific additional terms, we’ll provide you with reasonable advance notice and the opportunity to review the changes, except (1) when we launch a new service or feature, or (2) in urgent situations, such as preventing ongoing abuse or responding to legal requirements. If you don’t agree to the new terms, you should remove your content and stop using the services. You can also end your relationship with us at any time by closing your Google Account.
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Let's contuine with Google's Privacy Policy
When you use our services, you’re trusting us with your information. We understand this is a big responsibility and work hard to protect your information and put you in control.
This Privacy Policy is meant to help you understand what information we collect, why we collect it, and how you can update, manage, export, and delete your information.
Privacy Checkup
Looking to change your privacy settings?
Take the Privacy Checkup
Effective October 4, 2022 | Archived versions | Download PDF
We build a range of services that help millions of people daily to explore and interact with the world in new ways. Our services include:
Google apps, sites, and devices, like Search, YouTube, and Google Home
Platforms like the Chrome browser and Android operating system
Products that are integrated into third-party apps and sites, like ads, analytics, and embedded Google Maps
You can use our services in a variety of ways to manage your privacy. For example, you can sign up for a Google Account if you want to create and manage content like emails and photos, or see more relevant search results. And you can use many Google services when you’re signed out or without creating an account at all, like searching on Google or watching YouTube videos. You can also choose to browse the web in a private mode, like Chrome Incognito mode. And across our services, you can adjust your privacy settings to control what we collect and how your information is used.
To help explain things as clearly as possible, we’ve added examples, explanatory videos, and definitions for key terms. And if you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you can contact us.
INFORMATION GOOGLE COLLECTS
We want you to understand the types of information we collect as you use our services
We collect information to provide better services to all our users — from figuring out basic stuff like which language you speak, to more complex things like which ads you’ll find most useful, the people who matter most to you online, or which YouTube videos you might like. The information Google collects, and how that information is used, depends on how you use our services and how you manage your privacy controls.
When you’re not signed in to a Google Account, we store the information we collect with unique identifiers tied to the browser, application, or device you’re using. This allows us to do things like maintain your preferences across browsing sessions, such as your preferred language or whether to show you more relevant search results or ads based on your activity.
When you’re signed in, we also collect information that we store with your Google Account, which we treat as personal information.
Things you create or provide to us
When you create a Google Account, you provide us with personal information that includes your name and a password. You can also choose to add a phone number or payment information to your account. Even if you aren’t signed in to a Google Account, you might choose to provide us with information — like an email address to communicate with Google or receive updates about our services.
We also collect the content you create, upload, or receive from others when using our services. This includes things like email you write and receive, photos and videos you save, docs and spreadsheets you create, and comments you make on YouTube videos.
Information we collect as you use our services
Your apps, browsers & devices
We collect information about the apps, browsers, and devices you use to access Google services, which helps us provide features like automatic product updates and dimming your screen if your battery runs low.
The information we collect includes unique identifiers, browser type and settings, device type and settings, operating system, mobile network information including carrier name and phone number, and application version number. We also collect information about the interaction of your apps, browsers, and devices with our services, including IP address, crash reports, system activity, and the date, time, and referrer URL of your request.
We collect this information when a Google service on your device contacts our servers — for example, when you install an app from the Play Store or when a service checks for automatic updates. If you’re using an Android device with Google apps, your device periodically contacts Google servers to provide information about your device and connection to our services. This information includes things like your device type and carrier name, crash reports, which apps you've installed, and, depending on your device settings, other information about how you’re using your Android device.
Your activity
We collect information about your activity in our services, which we use to do things like recommend a YouTube video you might like. The activity information we collect may include:
Terms you search for
Videos you watch
Views and interactions with content and ads
Voice and audio information
Purchase activity
People with whom you communicate or share content
Activity on third-party sites and apps that use our services
Chrome browsing history you’ve synced with your Google Account
If you use our services to make and receive calls or send and receive messages, we may collect call and message log information like your phone number, calling-party number, receiving-party number, forwarding numbers, sender and recipient email address, time and date of calls and messages, duration of calls, routing information, and types and volumes of calls and messages.
You can visit your Google Account to find and manage activity information that’s saved in your account.
Go to Google Account
Your location information
We collect information about your location when you use our services, which helps us offer features like driving directions, search results for things near you, and ads based on your general location.
Your location can be determined with varying degrees of accuracy by:
GPS and other sensor data from your device
IP address
Activity on Google services, such as your searches and places you label like home or work
Information about things near your device, such as Wi-Fi access points, cell towers, and Bluetooth-enabled devices
The types of location data we collect and how long we store it depend in part on your device and account settings. For example, you can turn your Android device’s location on or off using the device’s settings app. You can also turn on Location History if you want to create a private map of where you go with your signed-in devices. And if your Web & App Activity setting is enabled, your searches and other activity from Google services, which may also include location information, is saved to your Google Account. Learn more about how we use location information.
In some circumstances, Google also collects information about you from publicly accessible sources. For example, if your name appears in your local newspaper, Google’s Search engine may index that article and display it to other people if they search for your name. We may also collect information about you from trusted partners, such as directory services who provide us with business information to be displayed on Google’s services, marketing partners who provide us with information about potential customers of our business services, and security partners who provide us with information to protect against abuse. We also receive information from advertising partners to provide advertising and research services on their behalf.
We use various technologies to collect and store information, including cookies, pixel tags, local storage, such as browser web storage or application data caches, databases, and server logs.
WHY GOOGLE COLLECTS DATA
We use data to build better services
We use the information we collect from all our services for the following purposes:
Provide our services
We use your information to deliver our services, like processing the terms you search for in order to return results or helping you share content by suggesting recipients from your contacts.
Maintain & improve our services
We also use your information to ensure our services are working as intended, such as tracking outages or troubleshooting issues that you report to us. And we use your information to make improvements to our services — for example, understanding which search terms are most frequently misspelled helps us improve spell-check features used across our services.
Develop new services
We use the information we collect in existing services to help us develop new ones. For example, understanding how people organized their photos in Picasa, Google’s first photos app, helped us design and launch Google Photos.
Provide personalized services, including content and ads
We use the information we collect to customize our services for you, including providing recommendations, personalized content, and customized search results. For example, Security Checkup provides security tips adapted to how you use Google products. And Google Play uses information like apps you’ve already installed and videos you’ve watched on YouTube to suggest new apps you might like.
Depending on your settings, we may also show you personalized ads based on your interests. For example, if you search for “mountain bikes,” you may see an ad for sports equipment when you’re browsing a site that shows ads served by Google. You can control what information we use to show you ads by visiting your ad settings.
We don’t show you personalized ads based on sensitive categories, such as race, religion, sexual orientation, or health.
We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos.
We don’t share information that personally identifies you with advertisers, such as your name or email, unless you ask us to. For example, if you see an ad for a nearby flower shop and select the “tap to call” button, we’ll connect your call and may share your phone number with the flower shop.
Go to Ad Settings
Measure performance
We use data for analytics and measurement to understand how our services are used. For example, we analyze data about your visits to our sites to do things like optimize product design. And we also use data about the ads you interact with to help advertisers understand the performance of their ad campaigns. We use a variety of tools to do this, including Google Analytics. When you visit sites or use apps that use Google Analytics, a Google Analytics customer may choose to enable Google to link information about your activity from that site or app with activity from other sites or apps that use our ad services.
Communicate with you
We use information we collect, like your email address, to interact with you directly. For example, we may send you a notification if we detect suspicious activity, like an attempt to sign in to your Google Account from an unusual location. Or we may let you know about upcoming changes or improvements to our services. And if you contact Google, we’ll keep a record of your request in order to help solve any issues you might be facing.
Protect Google, our users, and the public
We use information to help improve the safety and reliability of our services. This includes detecting, preventing, and responding to fraud, abuse, security risks, and technical issues that could harm Google, our users, or the public.
We use different technologies to process your information for these purposes. We use automated systems that analyze your content to provide you with things like customized search results, personalized ads, or other features tailored to how you use our services. And we analyze your content to help us detect abuse such as spam, malware, and illegal content. We also use algorithms to recognize patterns in data. For example, Google Translate helps people communicate across languages by detecting common language patterns in phrases you ask it to translate.
We may combine the information we collect among our services and across your devices for the purposes described above. For example, if you watch videos of guitar players on YouTube, you might see an ad for guitar lessons on a site that uses our ad products. Depending on your account settings, your activity on other sites and apps may be associated with your personal information in order to improve Google’s services and the ads delivered by Google.
If other users already have your email address or other information that identifies you, we may show them your publicly visible Google Account information, such as your name and photo. This helps people identify an email coming from you, for example.
We’ll ask for your consent before using your information for a purpose that isn’t covered in this Privacy Policy.
YOUR PRIVACY CONTROLS
You have choices regarding the information we collect and how it's used
This section describes key controls for managing your privacy across our services. You can also visit the Privacy Checkup, which provides an opportunity to review and adjust important privacy settings. In addition to these tools, we also offer specific privacy settings in our products — you can learn more in our Product Privacy Guide.
Go to Privacy Checkup
Managing, reviewing, and updating your information
When you’re signed in, you can always review and update information by visiting the services you use. For example, Photos and Drive are both designed to help you manage specific types of content you’ve saved with Google.
We also built a place for you to review and control information saved in your Google Account. Your Google Account includes:
Privacy controls
Activity Controls
Decide what types of activity you’d like saved in your account. For example, if you have YouTube History turned on, the videos you watch and the things you search for are saved in your account so you can get better recommendations and remember where you left off. And if you have Web & App Activity turned on, your searches and activity from other Google services are saved in your account so you can get more personalized experiences like faster searches and more helpful app and content recommendations. Web & App Activity also has a subsetting that lets you control whether information about your activity on other sites, apps, and devices that use Google services, such as apps you install and use on Android, is saved in your Google Account and used to improve Google services.
Go to Activity Controls
Ad settings
Manage your preferences about the ads shown to you on Google and on sites and apps that partner with Google to show ads. You can modify your interests, choose whether your personal information is used to make ads more relevant to you, and turn on or off certain advertising services.
Go to Ad Settings
About you
Manage personal info in your Google Account and control who can see it across Google services.
Go to About You
Shared endorsements
Choose whether your name and photo appear next to your activity, like reviews and recommendations, that appear in ads.
Go to Shared Endorsements
Sites and apps that use Google services
Manage information that websites and apps using Google services, like Google Analytics, may share with Google when you visit or interact with their services.
Go to How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services
Ways to review & update your information
My Activity
My Activity allows you to review and control data that’s saved to your Google Account when you’re signed in and using Google services, like searches you’ve done or your visits to Google Play. You can browse by date and by topic, and delete part or all of your activity.
Go to My Activity
Google Dashboard
Google Dashboard allows you to manage information associated with specific products.
Go to Dashboard
Your personal information
Manage your contact information, such as your name, email, and phone number.
Go to Personal Info
When you’re signed out, you can manage information associated with your browser or device, including:
Signed-out search personalization: Choose whether your search activity is used to offer you more relevant results and recommendations.
YouTube settings: Pause and delete your YouTube Search History and your YouTube Watch History.
Ad Settings: Manage your preferences about the ads shown to you on Google and on sites and apps that partner with Google to show ads.
Exporting, removing & deleting your information
You can export a copy of content in your Google Account if you want to back it up or use it with a service outside of Google.
Export your data
To delete your information, you can:
Delete your content from specific Google services
Search for and then delete specific items from your account using My Activity
Delete specific Google products, including your information associated with those products
Delete your entire Google Account
Delete your information
Inactive Account Manager allows you to give someone else access to parts of your Google Account in case you’re unexpectedly unable to use your account.
And finally, you can also request to remove content from specific Google services based on applicable law and our policies.
There are other ways to control the information Google collects whether or not you’re signed in to a Google Account, including:
Browser settings: For example, you can configure your browser to indicate when Google has set a cookie in your browser. You can also configure your browser to block all cookies from a specific domain or all domains. But remember that our services rely on cookies to function properly, for things like remembering your language preferences.
Device-level settings: Your device may have controls that determine what information we collect. For example, you can modify location settings on your Android device.
SHARING YOUR INFORMATION
When you share your information
Many of our services let you share information with other people, and you have control over how you share. For example, you can share videos on YouTube publicly or you can decide to keep your videos private. Remember, when you share information publicly, your content may become accessible through search engines, including Google Search.
When you’re signed in and interact with some Google services, like leaving comments on a YouTube video or reviewing an app in Play, your name and photo appear next to your activity. We may also display this information in ads depending on your Shared endorsements setting.
When Google shares your information
We do not share your personal information with companies, organizations, or individuals outside of Google except in the following cases:
With your consent
We’ll share personal information outside of Google when we have your consent. For example, if you use Google Home to make a reservation through a booking service, we’ll get your permission before sharing your name or phone number with the restaurant. We also provide you with controls to review and manage third party apps and sites you have given access to data in your Google Account. We’ll ask for your explicit consent to share any sensitive personal information.
With domain administrators
If you’re a student or work for an organization that uses Google services, your domain administrator and resellers who manage your account will have access to your Google Account. They may be able to:
Access and retain information stored in your account, like your email
View statistics regarding your account, like how many apps you install
Change your account password
Suspend or terminate your account access
Receive your account information in order to satisfy applicable law, regulation, legal process, or enforceable governmental request
Restrict your ability to delete or edit your information or your privacy settings
For external processing
We provide personal information to our affiliates and other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures. For example, we use service providers to help operate our data centers, deliver our products and services, improve our internal business processes, and offer additional support to customers and users. We also use service providers to help review YouTube video content for public safety and analyze and listen to samples of saved user audio to help improve Google’s audio recognition technologies.
For legal reasons
We will share personal information outside of Google if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation, or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:
Meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or enforceable governmental request. We share information about the number and type of requests we receive from governments in our Transparency Report.
Enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations.
Detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, or technical issues.
Protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, our users, or the public as required or permitted by law.
We may share non-personally identifiable information publicly and with our partners — like publishers, advertisers, developers, or rights holders. For example, we share information publicly to show trends about the general use of our services. We also allow specific partners to collect information from your browser or device for advertising and measurement purposes using their own cookies or similar technologies.
If Google is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, we’ll continue to ensure the confidentiality of your personal information and give affected users notice before personal information is transferred or becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
KEEPING YOUR INFORMATION SECURE
We build security into our services to protect your information
All Google products are built with strong security features that continuously protect your information. The insights we gain from maintaining our services help us detect and automatically block security threats from ever reaching you. And if we do detect something risky that we think you should know about, we’ll notify you and help guide you through steps to stay better protected.
We work hard to protect you and Google from unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction of information we hold, including:
We use encryption to keep your data private while in transit
We offer a range of security features, like Safe Browsing, Security Checkup, and 2 Step Verification to help you protect your account
We review our information collection, storage, and processing practices, including physical security measures, to prevent unauthorized access to our systems
We restrict access to personal information to Google employees, contractors, and agents who need that information in order to process it. Anyone with this access is subject to strict contractual confidentiality obligations and may be disciplined or terminated if they fail to meet these obligations.
EXPORTING & DELETING YOUR INFORMATION
You can export a copy of your information or delete it from your Google Account at any time
You can export a copy of content in your Google Account if you want to back it up or use it with a service outside of Google.
Export your data
To delete your information, you can:
Delete your content from specific Google services
Search for and then delete specific items from your account using My Activity
Delete specific Google products, including your information associated with those products
Delete your entire Google Account
Delete your information
RETAINING YOUR INFORMATION
We retain the data we collect for different periods of time depending on what it is, how we use it, and how you configure your settings:
Some data you can delete whenever you like, such as your personal info or the content you create or upload, like photos and documents. You can also delete activity information saved in your account, or choose to have it deleted automatically after a set period of time. We’ll keep this data in your Google Account until you remove it or choose to have it removed.
Other data is deleted or anonymized automatically after a set period of time, such as advertising data in server logs.
We keep some data until you delete your Google Account, such as information about how often you use our services.
And some data we retain for longer periods of time when necessary for legitimate business or legal purposes, such as security, fraud and abuse prevention, or financial record-keeping.
When you delete data, we follow a deletion process to make sure that your data is safely and completely removed from our servers or retained only in anonymized form. We try to ensure that our services protect information from accidental or malicious deletion. Because of this, there may be delays between when you delete something and when copies are deleted from our active and backup systems.
You can read more about Google’s data retention periods, including how long it takes us to delete your information.
COMPLIANCE & COOPERATION WITH REGULATORS
We regularly review this Privacy Policy and make sure that we process your information in ways that comply with it.
Data transfers
We maintain servers around the world and your information may be processed on servers located outside of the country where you live. Data protection laws vary among countries, with some providing more protection than others. Regardless of where your information is processed, we apply the same protections described in this policy. We also comply with certain legal frameworks relating to the transfer of data.
When we receive formal written complaints, we respond by contacting the person who made the complaint. We work with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of your data that we cannot resolve with you directly.
California requirements
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) requires specific disclosures for California residents.
This Privacy Policy is designed to help you understand how Google handles your information:
We explain the categories of information Google collects and the sources of that information in Information Google collects.
We explain how Google uses information in Why Google collects data.
We explain when Google may share information in Sharing your information. Google does not sell your personal information.
The CCPA also provides the right to request information about how Google collects, uses, and discloses your personal information. And it gives you the right to access your information and request that Google delete that information. Finally, the CCPA provides the right to not be discriminated against for exercising your privacy rights.
We describe the choices you have to manage your privacy and data across Google’s services in Your privacy controls. You can exercise your rights by using these controls, which allow you to access, review, update and delete your information, as well as export and download a copy of it. When you use them, we’ll validate your request by verifying that you’re signed in to your Google Account. If you have questions or requests related to your rights under the CCPA, you (or your authorized agent) can also contact Google. You can also find more information on Google’s handling of CCPA requests.
The CCPA requires a description of data practices using specific categories. This table uses these categories to organize the information in this Privacy Policy.
Categories of personal information we collect
Identifiers such as your name, phone number, and address, as well as unique identifiers tied to the browser, application, or device you’re using.
Demographic information, such as your age, gender and language.
Commercial information such as your payment information and a history of purchases you make on Google’s services.
Biometric information if you choose to provide it, such as fingerprints in Google’s product development studies.
Internet, network, and other activity information such as your search terms; views and interactions with content and ads; Chrome browsing history you’ve synced with your Google Account; information about the interaction of your apps, browsers, and devices with our services (like IP address, crash reports, and system activity); and activity on third-party sites and apps that use our services. You can review and control activity data stored in your Google Account in My Activity.
Geolocation data, such as may be determined by GPS, IP address, and other data from sensors on or around your device, depending in part on your device and account settings. Learn more about Google’s use of location information.
Audio, electronic, visual, and similar information, such as voice and audio information.
Professional, employment, and education information, such as information you provide or that is maintained through an organization using Google services at which you study or work.
Other information you create or provide, such as the content you create, upload, or receive (like photos and videos or emails, docs and spreadsheets). Google Dashboard allows you to manage information associated with specific products.
Inferences drawn from the above, like your ads interest categories.
Business purposes for which information may be used or disclosed
Protecting against security threats, abuse, and illegal activity: Google uses and may disclose information to detect, prevent and respond to security incidents, and for protecting against other malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity. For example, to protect our services, Google may receive or disclose information about IP addresses that malicious actors have compromised.
Auditing and measurement: Google uses information for analytics and measurement to understand how our services are used, as well as to fulfill obligations to our partners like publishers, advertisers, developers, or rights holders. We may disclose non-personally identifiable information publicly and with these partners, including for auditing purposes.
Maintaining our services: Google uses information to ensure our services are working as intended, such as tracking outages or troubleshooting bugs and other issues that you report to us.
Research and development: Google uses information to improve our services and to develop new products, features and technologies that benefit our users and the public. For example, we use publicly available information to help train Google’s language models and build features like Google Translate.
Use of service providers: Google shares information with service providers to perform services on our behalf, in compliance with our Privacy Policy and other appropriate confidentiality and security measures. For example, we may rely on service providers to help provide customer support.
Advertising: Google processes information to provide advertising, including online identifiers, browsing and search activity, and information about your location and interactions with advertisements. This keeps Google’s services and many of the websites and services you use free of charge. You can control what information we use to show you ads by visiting your ad settings.
Legal reasons: Google also uses information to satisfy applicable laws or regulations, and discloses information in response to legal process or enforceable government requests, including to law enforcement. We provide information about the number and type of requests we receive from governments in our Transparency Report.
Parties with whom information may be shared
Other people with whom you choose to share your information, like docs or photos, and videos or comments on YouTube.
Third parties to whom you consent to sharing your information, such as services that integrate with Google’s services. You can review and manage third party apps and sites with access to data in your Google Account.
Service providers, trusted businesses or persons that process information on Google’s behalf, based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
Domain administrators, if you work or study at an organization that uses Google services.
Law enforcement or other third parties, for the legal reasons described in Sharing your information.
ABOUT THIS POLICY
When this policy applies
This Privacy Policy applies to all of the services offered by Google LLC and its affiliates, including YouTube, Android, and services offered on third-party sites, such as advertising services. This Privacy Policy doesn’t apply to services that have separate privacy policies that do not incorporate this Privacy Policy.
This Privacy Policy doesn’t apply to:
The information practices of other companies and organizations that advertise our services
Services offered by other companies or individuals, including products or sites they offer that may include Google services to which the policy applies, or products or sites displayed to you in search results, or linked from our services
Changes to this policy
We change this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will not reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. We always indicate the date the last changes were published and we offer access to archived versions for your review. If changes are significant, we’ll provide a more prominent notice (including, for certain services, email notification of Privacy Policy changes).