Google will soon let users auto-delete Web and App Activity, Geo-location data

Google, like Facebook, has been under pressure from privacy advocates to improve its data collection policies and has received a lot of criticism of late for holding on to users’ geolocation information on its servers for an indefinite amount of time.In response, Google claims to have been progressively making changes to its data collection protocols, giving users more power over the private information the company keeps a record of.In addition to that, Google says going forward, users will have the option of having their online history automatically deleted after a certain period of time.As per a blog post by Google, the auto-delete option will allow users to choose an expiration time of either three months or 18 months for the data collected by the search giant. This includes past searches, online activity on Google-owned sites (such as YouTube, etc), Android app installation and usage, and information collected through the 'Location History' feature on Google Search and Google Maps.The new auto-deletion feature will be available under the account settings pane under the 'Web and App Activity' and 'Location History' sections.When asked by TechCrunch on further clarification on the reach of the feature, Google stated that the feature will extend to a user’s browsing history in Chrome, as well as in-app data and the Google Discover feature for Android. The tech giant is yet to confirm how far the auto-delete feature extends across its products but suggested that the feature will likely apply to all services that use a Google login.