Publish date | 24 May 2019 |
Issue Number | 1783 |
Diary | Legalbrief eLaw |
The fact that Google keeps track of information such as search and location history is fairly well-known, considering the widespread popularity of its search engine and navigation app. But what may be less obvious is the running list that Google keeps of your purchases. The company logs purchases based on receipts delivered to your Gmail inbox as well as items or services you've purchased through Google's services. It's unclear exactly how long the company has been logging this information, but the page was noted in a Reddit thread from nine months ago and surfaced again on Friday thanks to a report from CNBC. ‘To help you easily view and keep track of your purchases, bookings and subscriptions in one place, we've created a private destination that can only be seen by you,’ Google said in a statement to Business Insider. ‘You can delete this information at any time. We don't use any information from your Gmail messages to serve you ads, and that includes the e-mail receipts and confirmations shown on the Purchases page.’ The report notes that there doesn't appear to be an easy way to delete these purchases from your Gmail inbox or the Purchases page other than removing each entry individually.