Better still, Google has a tool that lets you view your previous purchases in what it calls a “private destination” only seen by you. For me, this purchase history dates back to 2012 — the year I created my current Gmail account. Before we break out the tinfoil hats, it’s worth noting that there’s nothing extraordinary to see here. My purchases, for example, make me look about as boring as I feel most days — a lot of books, a few apps, and a handful of games. You can see your purchases here.
A Google representative told The Verge: For Google, the statement makes little sense. First, while the history is fairly easy to delete, you have to delete each item one-by-one. There’s no way to clear the entire history. I’m also not buying the claims that it wants to help you keep track of all your purchases in one place, as this application was fairly hidden from view, previously unknown to most who might want to use it for exactly that reason. Google has also proven unwilling to tell us how long this feature has existed, or why it’s logging offline purchases using certain point-of-sale terminals, like Square — meaning, it’s not just tracking purchases made online — but not others. Before we jump to conclusions, however, it’s important to note that Google said back in 2017 that it would stop using collected Gmail data to serve personalized advertisements to its users. What’s troubling though, is that it might no longer need to. A 2018 Bloomberg report revealed that Google and Mastercard had reached a deal that would pay the latter millions for coughing up purchase data on its card holders. Google itself claims to have access to the purchase data of “approximately 70 percent” of US credit or debit card holders. Regardless of how Google is using the data, if it’s using the data, the idea that this kind of ledger exists should be enough to give shoppers pause. I, for one, would gladly trade convenience in “[helping] me keep track of all my shopping habits” for a future that doesn’t include weaponizing this information and selling it to the highest bidder. And while it’s not clear that’s what Google is doing here, the fact that it could is unsettling, to say the least.
