Received a message from Google, about an account with them that was created just to sub to Office 365. Just an email, used only for that, logged off as soon as verifications and all that were done. Today received a notice:



To protect your privacy, this is a reminder that you have your Web & App Activity setting turned on.

Wait, what?
It provided a link to see, manage history and so on, so I look into it. Not only was it turned on by default, but it claimed I was viewing various Youtube videos using Chrome. I’m not a Chrome user, ever, but use a browser that has the Chrome engine in use. Maybe they have tracking built into the core and not just the normal Chrome browser? Laborious process to delete it all (did so), go to turn off the setting as they say I can.
It only offers “pause”. Pause is a non-permanent change that can be “unpaused”, probably by them, whenever they decide it’s been long enough or the “pause” timer resets.

They were also kind enough to “tailor” my ads by default, based on the activity I didn’t know they were tracking.
I know keeping private on the web is not simple, but this is crazy.