Google Wallet collects and uses your spending habits to build a digital profile, but do you know what they’re really doing with it? Here’s how you can opt out.
When you pay with Google Wallet, you’re feeding information into your Google account. This includes the merchant’s name, business category, date, and time of purchase, as well as location data if you’ve enabled GPS. While individual data points seem harmless, collecting them over time paints a picture of your daily routine.
Google claims not to sell transaction history to other companies or share it for ads. However, this context is still used to build a behavioral signal that can influence the ads you see across Google’s network.
You can stop this data pipeline by turning off data sharing in a few steps:
1. Open Google Wallet on wallet.google.com and tap Settings.
2. Scroll down and tap Privacy & security.
3. Tap Manage payments data and toggle off Personalization within Google Pay and Share your personal info with other Google companies for marketing purposes.
Additionally, another important privacy setting is located inside your main Google account controls. You can find it by going to myaccount.google.com > Data & privacy > History settings > Web & App Activity.
By opting out of data sharing, you’re creating a blind spot in Google’s data collection and degrading the quality of their advertising profile. This may mean less personalized offers and integrations between apps, but the benefits to your privacy are monumental.
Source: https://www.androidpolice.com/stop-google-wallet-logging