Google Workspace to strip privacy control from admins, re-enable tracking

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Starting on March 29, Google is changing its infamous "Web & App Activity" controls for paid users of Google Workspace. That feature is now being split up into two settings, one still called "Web & App Activity" and another called "Search history." The big news is that Google is taking advantage of this settings split to re-enable some tracking features, even if users have previously opted out.

Google has started emailing Workspace administrators about the change (thanks, Hacker News), and a support page gives some details about what's going on. Both the email and support page are incredibly confusing—even Google's own employees have a hard time parsing Google's privacy controls—but we'll try to shed some light on the situation.

The support page begins, "Starting March 29, 2022, the Web & App Activity Admin console setting is going away." "Web & App Activity" is one of the two main Google privacy settings (along with "Location History") that saves everything you do on your Google account. You might remember these settings from several lawsuits about how confusing and poorly labeled they were. Leaving these settings on means that features like autocomplete work better, but it also means that Google gets to keep all your activity.