Google has announced a new tool that enables users to see what
information the internet firm keeps about their activities on
Gmail, Reader, YouTube and other accounts.
Google Dashboard is an effort to provide users with greater
transparency and control over their own data, according to an
official
blog post.
The tool summarises data kept about the use of more than 20 of
the firm's services and provides links to enable users to control
personal privacy settings.
Google Dashboard follows on from similar tools introduced
earlier this year to allow users to see the profile of interests
Google is building up about them in order to serve targeted
advertising.
"The scale and level of detail of the Dashboard is
unprecedented, and we're delighted to be the first internet company
to offer this and we hope it will become the standard," the post
said.
Only information shared with Google while logged into its
services is shown by the Dashboard, enabling Google account holders
to change settings and delete data.
Privacy campaigners have welcomed Google Dashboard and called on
the rest of the internet-services based industry to take a similar
line to solve some of the challenges to privacy.
But Dashboard does not include information Google records
without identifying accounts of users, such as server logs
containing details of searches, web browser types and computer IP
addresses.
Search data remains contentious between Google and European data
protection officials who want to limit retention of such data to
six months instead of Google's policy of nine.