How to see if Google Maps is tracking you!!

A conversation came up about how Facebook is always listening to you...(which it is).  I also brought up the fact that Google Maps is tracking you too unless you disable it.

I wrote up a "How to" a few years ago & posted it in Facebook I think.  Not sure if anyone paid any mind to it but it bears repeating.  Here are the steps to find out if Google Maps is tracking you and how to turn it off.  This only applies to you if you have a GMAIL account and an Android.  I don't know if it does it on an Apple phone.  Someone would have to check for me.

1.  Make sure you are logged into GMail account and go to maps.google.com.

2.  In the search bar, top left, there are 3 horizontal lines.  Click on them.

3.  You'll see an option for "Your Timeline".  Click on that.  

If things settings are on, you should see a timeline of where you've been with little red dots showing everything.  Below is my timeline but I turned it off a couple of years ago:

You can see one dot, down in Athens, Ohio. I was there in 2012 visiting my daughter in college.

Paranoid yet?  If you have any dots, zoom in & click on them.  Feel free to explore.  It's very interesting to see Google tracking your movements.  Hell...it will even show the route you too, drive time, how long you were in certain place.  All kinds of information!!

(I blanked out some info here for privacy reasons)

But, as you can see, it provides a full timeline of where you were, how long you were there, all the fun stuff!

Personally, I have nothing to hide.  But nonetheless, Google doesn't need to keep track of me regardless of how cool it looks.

HOW TO TURN IT OFF!!

1.  If you see red dots, it's on.  At the bottom of the screen with all the red dots there is a banner that says something like "Location History is on".  Underneath it there is a "Manage Location History" button.  Click on that.

2.  Once in it will be titled "Activity controls".  Feel free to look around but the option you are looking for is "Location History" and a slider button next to it.  Click the slider button.

3.  A HUGE banner will come up "warning" you, you are pausing your location history.  Read it to be sure this is what you want to do.  If you don't want to pause it, click the "Cancel" button on the bottom.  If you do want to pause it, click "Pause".

4.  If you clicked "Pause" you'll be shown a banner that your setting is now off.  I see a new feature has been added to "Delete old activity".  Click that if you want.  If not, click "Got it".

5.  You'll be back to the "Activity controls" screen and the "Location History" will show it's paused.

You can back out of here, or close it all together, or feel free to look around.

If you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them.  Hope this has helped at least one person out there!

John