Google tracks every purchase you made online

While we shop online regularly on Amazon, Flipkart and other e-commerce websites and quickly login with Google -- thanks to the plug-in, given directly at the sign-up page, but ever wondered Google can track every single online purchase you made. How it collects? Well, whenever we purchase a product online and have used a Google account, the company sends us a purchase receipts to our personal Gmail account. Bingo!

According to a report in CNBC, this information is provided to you via a private web tool that the search giant has been using for a long amount of time. You can go view it here.

For instance, if you have been logging in with your Gmail account on e-commerce websites say for last 5 years, your purchase history stretches back as far as 2014. The purchase history also includes real-world transactions made using credit card.

While Google keeps track of all your purchases, bookings and subscriptions, the search giant claims that it does not use this information to serve you ads. The company also allows you to manually delete each recorded transaction from the Purchase webpage.

Like Facebook, Google also closely follows you online and understands about your behaviour -- your personal habits and what you buy on the internet. And like the social media giant, Google dominates the ad industry. Tu push relevant ads, Google collects information mostly in background using methods and tools its users may not be fully aware of, like Gmail purchase receipts.

Some other examples of data collection include third-party apps that pull contents from Gmail messages, auto-login feature in Chrome that sync web browsing with your Gmail account. It looks like Google offers users a compromise that involves trading its web services in exchange of data that the company collects via different methods, users aren’t aware of and have little control over. The user data collected is then fed to the Google ads division.

‘Yes, we use data to make our products more helpful for everyone. But we also protect your information,’ said Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google, in a press statement earlier.

But, to help users know what data is being collected, how it’s collected, and in what ways it can be deleted, the company at its I/O conference announced a new privacy policy for its smart home devices. The company also announced new tools for users to monitor their ad tracking in Chrome and Incognito mode options. The new set of controls allows users to see all of the cookies stored by the browser and gives them the option of blocking any trackers they don’t like.