How to turn off Google’s location tracking

Users often turn off ‘location history’ or ‘location services’ and think that Google is no longer tracking us and it is not collecting any location data from our devices, but that’s not true. A report from Associated Press had recently revealed that Google tracks our location for providing personalised search results based on our location and advertising.

Even after turning off the location toggle, Google still tracks location based on the services people use such as weather, maps, search and also using an IP address. In fact, while pausing the location tracking services, it warns you that “some location data may be saved as part of your activity on other Google services, like Search and Maps.”

To stop this altogether, users need to turn off ‘Web & App Activity’ service of their Google account. This will stop Google from tracking and keeping a log of your location history.

In case you are wondering on how to do this, follow our ready-to-use-guide for you:

For Android devices:

1.Open ‘Settings’ and tap on ‘Google

2.Head to ‘Google Account’ and look for ‘Data & personalisation’ tab

3.Toggle Web & App Activity off

To turn off location history:

1.Go to the ‘Data & personalisation’ option

2.Tap on ‘location history’ option and toggle off the setting for each and every device linked to that Google Account

For iOS (iPhone/iPad) and Windows devices:

1.Open ‘https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols’ on your browser

2.Sign in into the account using your credentials

3.Toggle off the ‘Web & App Activity’ settings

4.Also, turn off the ‘Location history’ toggle located just below the ‘Web & App Activity’ settings