I dismantled Google’s tracking systems — here’s what happened

Recent scandals surrounding how the world’s largest tech companies and social media platforms make use of the data they collect from consumers have led many people, myself among them, to investigate the devices and digital services they use without a second thought each day.

What I and many other folks around the world found was shocking: companies like Facebook, Apple and, perhaps above all others, Google, are collecting huge sums of data from us on a daily basis, even when we’re unaware of it.

Here’s what happened when I turned off all of Google’s excessive tracking services, and the shocking discoveries I made about what certain companies know about me from my search history and tracking services.