Business Insider

The more Google knows about you, the more it can match you to an advertiser who thinks you are an ideal customer. Advertisers are willing to pay more for ads served to ideal potential customers. For instance, airlines want to target people who love to travel. Children’s clothing makers want to target parents.

Google uses a lot of methods to learn about you. There’s the stuff you tell Google outright when you sign up for its services, like Gmail and Google Maps, or via an Android phone, like your name, phone number, location, and so on. Google also deduces information about you from watching your internet searches (what do you search for? click on?) and from the stuff you do with Google’s products.

By visiting a site called “Ads Settings” you can see what Google knows about you.

Remember the crazy story earlier this year of the lengths one woman went to keep news of her pregnancy from Big Data? Well, there may have been an easier way to avoid most of it…

The most problematic elements of tracking can mostly be avoided with the right browser and simply erasing the information Google has been selling about you.

The above-linked article shows you how…

Of course, a good VPN is still a pretty decent idea.