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Google Keeps a Record of Your Entire Search History—Here’s How to Delete It in 4 Easy Steps

May 11, 2018 No Comments

By Alix Langone

This content originally appeared on Money.

YouTube. Panera. Facebook. Equifax. Every week, it seems, there’s a new hack to worry about.

This ever-expanding list has many people realizing their personal information is less secure than they thought. Consumers are looking for ways to limit their online exposure and take proactive measures to protect themselves and their information.

One way to start taking control of your online information is to minimize the ways that advertisers and other companies track and store data they’ve collected on you.

Deleting your Google web browser history and Google search history is one way to limit how much data you allow to be collected about you on the internet. Even if you’re someone who already uses Google’s incognito web browser, you’re still not being kept completely anonymous online.

Believe it or not, there are other web browsers out there besides Google, they are just much less well-known. One example of a search engine that prioritizes user privacy is DuckDuckGo, which is essentially a Google that doesn’t track you online. “It feels like the standard of trust online has really gone down, and we are trying to set a new standard of trust online,” said DuckDuckGO’s CEO and founder, Gabriel Weinberg. “Our mission is to make getting privacy as easy as closing the blinds.”

Even though the push for more transparency online is gaining traction with some newer companies, if you’re one of the people making some of the 3.5 billion search queries each day that are processed by Google, chances are you still might want to delete some, or all, of your internet history.

Deleting all of your web browsing activity doesn’t get rid of all of the information Google has about you, though. You also have to separately delete certain data like your maps activity if you have “location history” turned on.

Even if you delete all or some of your activity, Google still records data about the way you used its web browser related to the deleted data—if you search for something, it’ll still keep a record of the fact that you searched for something at that specific time and date, but not what you specifically searched for, according to the company’s website.

Unlike some other tech companies, Google says it will actually delete the data associated with your account after you completely delete it. Aside from using a web browser like DuckDuckGo, one of the easiest things you can do to ensure your future online activity is not tracked moving forward is too choose “Stop Saving Activity” when you adjust your Google settings.

How to turn off your activity:

On your computer, go to Activity controls.
Turn off the activity you don’t want to save.
To confirm, select Pause.

Just remember if you delete your history, all of your saved passwords will be wiped too, so you’ll have to re-login to all of the sites you had saved passwords for.

Since you’ve probably already used Google thousands of times in your life at this point, if you want to delete your Google search history and Google browser history, here’s how.

How do I delete my Google browser history:

Make sure you’re signed into your Google account first (the instructions differ slightly depending on the device you use, but Google has step by step instructions for all kinds of tech).

On your computer, open Chrome.
At the top right, click More.
Click History.
On the left, click Clear browsing data. A box will appear.
From the drop-down menu, select how much history you want to delete. To clear everything, select the beginning of time.
Check the boxes for the info you want Google Chrome to clear, including “browsing history.” There are also other types of browsing data you can delete.
Click Clear browsing data.

How do I delete my Google search history:

Go to “My Activity” on your computer.
At the top right of the page, choose More –> Delete activity by.
Below “Delete by date,” select the Down arrow –> All time.
Select Delete.

If you want to delete only specific items or activity you can also do that in “My Activity”:

- Browse by day. At the top right of the page, choose More –> Item view
- Search or use filters.
On the item you want to delete, choose More –> Delete.

And remember: Even though it’s a pain, always read the fine print if you can. And if you need help deciding whether you should really check the “I agree” box on almost any website, you can use the service tosdr.org, which rates companies’ terms and services agreements based on how transparent and consumer-friendly they are, so you can make an informed decision.

Feature Image Credit: Dougal Waters/Getty Images

By Alix Langone

Sourced from REALSIMPLE

In News

How does Google earn money? | As simple as that.

May 11, 2018 No Comments

By George Fotiadis

We use Google products every day, may that be Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail, Android or simply Google Search. We have come to a point where it is actually really hard not to use at least one of these services even if we try and companies built to prove the opposite have failed miserably (RIP Cyanogen).

First question: where does the money come from?

But most of us have never actually paid for these services. How is this possible? Is it so easy for Google to create all of these things that they just give them for free? Of course not. It’s one of those cases that:

If you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you are the product. — Andrew Lewis

So it’s not that you are not paying, it’s the way you’re paying. In Q4 2017 Google earned $31.91 billion, $27.27 of which are due to its ads business. That’s approximately 85.5% of all revenue. So the quick answer to our question is ads.

Next question: How?

Google’s ads business is divided into three main components: AdWords and AdSense, AdMob. AdWords is the software determining which ads will be presented in the Google webpage and AdSense publishes ads on other websites. For example if I own a cooking blog and I want to put some ads on it, I would just indicate the place where I want the ads to be and AdSense would do the rest. AdMob is the same as AdSense but for mobile applications.

-Ok that’s nice but I still don’t understand what’s my role into all of this.

The keyword is personalised!

For simplicity we’ll examine AdWords which is also Google’s biggest stream of income. What the search engine does first (and updates daily) is a process called web-crawling which is nothing more than creating a map of the web and honestly, it’s relatively easy; it just takes a lot of computers! So when you’re searching for a cheap hotel in Zurich (spoiler alert there aren’t any) you don’t actually search the whole web, Google only shows you the content that has already indexed and thinks that it’s relevant to what you’re searching for.

-How do they know what’s relevant? And how do they select which results or ads to show higher than others?

Aha! That’s the hard part, the part where you contribute.

The algorithm that took over 5 years to develop

To predict what you are searching for they use a machine learning algorithm that analyses your input applying natural language processing to really “understand” what you mean. Of course this algorithm has to be trained and besides content collected from the websites themselves, your data is what it’s trained with. Same applies for the normal results ordering. A simple example is that when you search for something and instantly click on the second result it shows them that it might be more relevant to your search query and might need to show up higher in a future search.

Where it gets really juicy is when it comes to showing and sorting ads. See, it’s not like in the TV where the enterprises have to pay a huge amount for their ad to be shown to everyone even if the majority of whom might not be interested in what they are selling. What Google offers and what makes it stand out of the competition is the ability to show personalised ads only to those people who actually care. My grandma might see 10 ads about the cool new “revolutionary” iPhone and she’s still not going to buy it but if you show the same ad to someone who is in the market for a new phone then it’s obviously a lot more effective.

Bid it to win it!

To decide which ads to show higher than others, besides the degree of relativeness, an ad auction is performed every time you search for something. The auction procedure is based on the Vickrey auction and called generalised second-price auction. I won’t get into the specifics and the math behind this, I will only mention that it’s a single round auction, the highest bidder wins but pays the second highest bid and it’s proved that the dominant strategy in a Vickrey auction is to bid the true value of your product (compared with a normal auction which happens in multiple rounds and the bid is the smallest possible).

Let’s take an example for clarification. Assume that me, Bob and Alice are hotel owners and we want to put an ad on Google. Also assume that we all have the same ad quality (we’ll get into that in a bit). If the suggested bid by Google is $1 and that’s the price that Bob and Alice bid but I bid $2 then I win, my ad will be shown first but I will pay $1 because that’s the second highest bid.

-Ok but frankly it doesn’t seem so different from the TV. I mean you pay for your ad to be shown but you have no idea if the user will actually notice it.

That’s why Google charges per click, you pay nothing as long as nobody clicks on your ad. And that’s where ad quality comes in, a variable determined by the number of clicks; more clicks equals better quality. This value is pivotal to the order of ad appearance and usually Google demotes bids for poor quality ads.

But at the end of the day you might ask, do all these justify the amount of money Google earns? Let’s do some quick math. There are approximately 450.000 searches for “cheap hotels” per month in the US and the suggested bid is $3.8. If half of those searches end up with a click to your ad then that’s $855,000 per month. And that’s only for one ad. Quite profitable I would say.

Conclusion

So to sum up, Google’s main income comes from its ads business and that’s heavily relied to data collected from its users. AdWords places ads on Google’s webpage while AdSense and AdMob show ads in collaborating websites and mobile apps respectively. The charges applied are per click and to determine the order that the ads appear an auction is performed between advertisers and the ad quality is also taken into account. And that’s how Google earns money, as simple as that.

By George Fotiadis

I’m a Computer Science student at EPFL interested in various topics like machine learning, applied data analysis and artificial intelligence to name a few. To learn more about me you can visit my personal website at gfotiadis.com.

If you liked this post you can follow me on Medium to get more stuff like this and if you REALLY liked it you can share it and #spreadItLikeMalware.

Sourced from Hackernoon

In News

Podcast: Facebook or Google Re-Targeting Ads?

May 11, 2018 No Comments

By Scott Ayres

Full Episode Details:

Which is Better: Facebook or Google Re-Targeting Ads?

Can Google Display Network convert website visitors into customers better than Facebook?

This is something we really wanted try out and test in the Social Media Lab.

Our Hypothesis:

In This Episode:

What the heck is Google Display Network (GDN)?
Explanation of Facebook re-targeting ads
How we setup the experiment
What the data says about re-targeting ads
Our conclusion based on the data

Quotes in This Episode:

“Google Display Network is a network with over 2 million, and counting, websites that Google serves ads on.. letting us target those visitors by interest and activity.” – Michael Angiletta

“Well I guess we have an obvious winner here, and that winner is… ??” – Richard Beeson

Resources:

Social Media Lab powered by Agorapulse

Facebook vs Google Re-targeting, which one Converts Better?

What Is The Social Media Lab?

The Social Media Lab is a project powered by Agorapulse dedicated to spending $15,000 per month to bust the myths, rumors and stories related to social media marketing.

We’ll test mainly organic reach, but also will run paid experiments.

The experiments are conducted by myself, Scott Ayres, and Jason How.

We typically publish 1 blog post and podcast per week.

The podcast is co-hosted by Richard Beeson and myself.

By Scott Ayres

Sourced from Social Media Lab by Agorapulse

In News

Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case, opens door for more requests to have unflattering search results delisted

May 10, 2018 No Comments

By Jason Hahn

If you screw up in a way that gets any sort of media attention, chances are you won’t like what you see when you run a query for your name on Google. And those unflattering search results could have far-reaching implications for your livelihood. Two businessmen in the UK didn’t like some results that turned up when their names were searched for on Google, so they took the company to the High Court of Justice based on the “right to be forgotten” precedent set by the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2014. One of the men won, while the other lost and was granted an appeal. The ruling sets an important bar for future requests to have search results delisted.

The two businessmen, referred to as “NT1” and “NT2” in the case, were convicted of separate crimes and served jail sentences. NT1 was convicted of conspiring to account falsely in the late 1990s and served four years in jail; NT2 was convicted of conspiring to intercept communications 10 years ago and served six months in jail.

Both men requested that Google remove search results about their pasts: NT1 submitted his request to remove six links on June 28th, 2014, while NT2 submitted his request to remove 11 links on April 14th, 2015. While Google delisted one of NT1’s six requested links, it refused to delist any of the others. So, NT1 and NT2 took the search giant to the UK High Court.

On April 13th, 2018, Justice Mark Warby ruled in favor of NT2, upholding a claim that a national newspaper article had misleading information about the “nature and extent of the claimant’s criminality.” Justice Warby concluded: “The crime and punishment information has become out of date, irrelevant and of no sufficient legitimate interest to users of Google Search to justify its continued availability, so that an appropriate delisting order should be made.” The judge noted that NT2 acknowledged his guilt and showed genuine remorse, and that the claimant is now in a different line of work. NT2 will not receive any compensation and will not be awarded any damages.

In the case of NT1, Justice Warby said the claimant has not accepted his guilt, misled the public, misled the High Court, and “shows no remorse over any of these matters.” The judge added that NT1 remains in business, and information about his past criminal conviction and jail sentence available via Google search results minimizes the risk that he will continue to mislead people.

However, Justice Warby granted an appeal in NT1’s case, adding that “It is quite likely that there will be more claims of this kind, and the fact that NT2 has succeeded is likely to reinforce that.”

In a statement, Google accepted the ruling in NT1 & NT2 v Google LLC (right to be forgotten): “We work hard to comply with the right to be forgotten, but we take great care not to remove search results that are in the public interest and will defend the public’s right to access lawful information. We are pleased that the court recognised our efforts in this area, and we will respect the judgments they have made in this case.”

“The right to be forgotten” is a legal precedent that comes from the Court of Justice of the European Union’s May 2014 ruling in a case brought by Mario Costeja Gonzalez, who requested that information about his financial history be removed from Google’s search results. Since then, Google has received requests to delist at least 2.4 million links from its search results and has removed about 800,000 of those links. Search engine companies can reject such requests if they deem the information in question to be in the public interest.

The ruling in favor of NT2 will surely embolden people who want unpleasant information about them removed from Google’s search results, especially if said information could impact their ability to make a living. Balancing the public interest with personal privacy and reputation is a tricky game, but this ruling will serve as a guideline for future cases — and maybe for Google’s decisions on delisting requests going forward.

By Jason Hahn

Jason is a corporate communicator by weekday, freelance writer by weekend. His Android days go back to the atrocity that was the HTC ThunderBolt, but his love for Android began in earnest with the Nexus 5. Jason lives in New Jersey and is always down to chat fantasy basketball (which he used to blog about).

Sourced from Android Police

In News

Google Lets Businesses Post Offers to Organic Search Results

April 19, 2018 No Comments

By Matt Southern

Google has been spotted testing a new feature which allows Google My Business pages to publish offers directly to search results.

This feature is built into Google Posts, which has been available to all businesses with a verified GMB profile since last summer. Google Posts lets businesses publish short messages, which appear in Maps and search results when the business name is searched for.

Until now Posts were limited to plain text, multimedia, or events. In the example below you can see Google is testing a new type of post for offers.

An offer includes the following components:

A photo
Up to 300 words of text
Post title
Start date/time and end date/time
Optional coupon code
A link to the offer

What businesses may appreciate most of all is that it doesn’t appear to cost anything to post offers. Of course, they will not be shown as widely as paid ads, but they still give businesses the opportunity to push sales in search results without having to pay Google for it.

Not everyone is able to replicate this feature, which indicates it’s still in the testing stages.

By Matt Southern

Sourced from Search Engine Journal

In News

Google Knows Literally Everything About You – Here’s How To Delete That Data

April 18, 2018 No Comments

By Thomas Tamblyn

Take back control of your information with these easy steps.

Google, just like Facebook, collects a lot of personal data about its users. While many of us might have put that thought to the back of our minds, this week one web developer reminded us of the true extent of Google’s great data grab with this eye-opening Twitter thread.

The post went viral, unsurprisingly, given that the details it contained: Google tracks every journey you make, it logs every video you watch on YouTube, and it even knows your tastes.

It doesn’t actually send any of this data outside of its own four walls. Instead, Google hordes it all so it can learn more about you, and better target the adverts you see and the services you use.

If the thought of a single company having all that information in one place makes you uncomfortable, then not only can you stop Google from tracking your every move, but you can also delete all the previous data it has been collecting on you. (Alternatively, you could download it (although we wouldn’t recommend it).

How to see everything Google collects on you

Since 2016, Google has allowed every user to see all of this information through a privacy website called My Activity. This will show you a timeline of every interaction you’ve made through one of Google’s apps – whether it’s watching a video on YouTube or asking for directions through Google Maps. Prepare yourself, it’s a bit scary.

Click here.

Stop Google saving every search you make

Google uses a lot of the data it collects to help it work faster – that’s why when you start typing in Google Search, it seems to instinctively know what you’re looking for. This can be useful, but comes with a tradeoff: Google records and remembers every search you make through Google, Google Now or even Google Maps. It doesn’t share this with anyone, but stores it for its own services.

To stop Google recording every search head to My Activity by clicking here. Now click on Activity Controls on the left-hand side of the screen.

You’re now in the main settings screen. The first setting is called Web & App Activity. Turn this off and then click on the word Pause. Also untick the box below that says Include Chrome browsing history and activity from websites and apps that use Google services.

Stop Google tracking your location

Google tracks everywhere you’ve been either from devices where you’ve signed in to Google Maps or through an Android device. Users with iPhones or Apple devices will find that Apple automatically limits this tracking considerably so you won’t have the same terrifying map of locations as Android users.

Head to My Activity by clicking here. Now click on Activity Controls on the left-hand side of the screen. Scroll down and you’ll find Location History. Turn this off and then click on the word Pause.

Stop Google tracking which smartphones you use

Google stores information about every Android device that you sign into, the idea being that it can better recommend apps and services the next time you have a new device.

Head to My Activity by clicking here. Now click on Activity Controls on the left-hand side of the screen. Scroll down and you’ll find Device Information. Turn this off and then click the word Pause.

Stop Google recording your voice

Every time you say ‘Ok Google’ to your phone or smart speaker Google saves that request so you can go back and review it or delete it. Google says that it saves these in order to improve the way your devices respond to you.

Head to My Activity by clicking here. Now click on Activity Controls on the left-hand side of the screen. Scroll down and you’ll see Voice and Audio Activity. Turn this off and click Pause.

Stop Google tracking every YouTube video you watch

When you’re using YouTube Google is recording every search and every video that you watch. The idea being that it can better recommend videos you might enjoy watching.

Head to My Activity by clicking here. Now click on Activity Controls on the left-hand side of the screen. Scroll down and you’ll see YouTube Search History and YouTube Watch History. Untick both of these boxes and click Pause when each box appears.

Stop Google creating a profile of you for advertisers

Google shares surprisingly little with advertisers in terms of your personal information. Rather it uses all of that information to create a rough anonymous profile of your interests. It is this info that is then used to target ads for products you might like. To see your advertising profile click here.

You can also turn off ad personalisation or tweak your own interests if you’re not happy with the adverts that you see. You can also scroll down and change your profile which will usually be a gender and a rough age range.

Download all your Google data

Soon to be everyone in the EU’s legal right, Google already lets you download all the data about you that it currently holds. While this might make interesting reading, once the data is on your computer it is now arguably less secure than it was before, so treat it with care.

Start by clicking here.

You can now pick and choose the type of data you want to download and in what format.

Delete all the data Google currently has on you

This is, remarkably, pretty easy.

Head to My Activity by clicking here. Now head to Delete activity by. Simply click on the date range and select All time. Now click Delete.

To delete all the location data Google has on you head to your Timeline by clicking here. In the bottom right-hand side you’ll find a rubbish bin, click on it and then click I understand and want to delete all location history.

To delete all the device information being collected on you click here. Now on the right-hand side click Delete All.

By Thomas Tamblyn

Sourced from HUFFPOST

In News

10 of the best Google Chrome extensions to make your life easier

April 16, 2018 No Comments

By Richard Priday

Chrome is the biggest web browser. Use these extensions to get it to work for you

Chrome’s web store is full of little digital gadgets to help make your web browsing simpler, more productive, and more enjoyable. Here are our top ten extensions that tick those boxes and are all downloadable for free in a matter of moments.

Compatible with YouTube, Twitch, Instagram and Twitter, Social Blade feeds you knowledge about the videos you watch. A user’s followers, estimated ad earnings and views are shown in an interface next to what you are watching, letting you check how your favourite users and rivals are performing. Get the extension here.

Cite This For Me

Anyone who needs to show the source of their information, be it for an essay or a presentation, will find this button exceedingly useful. It quickly cites the webpage you are looking at in one of four citation styles, which can then be saved for later or pasted into a document. Click here to find out more and install the extension.

LastPass

LastPass means you only have to remember one password to keep all your other login details together in one place. It will also help keep your other accounts secure by generating super secure passwords that it will fill in automatically as needed. There’s space for notes for offline information that you want to be well protected too. Install it here.

Colorzilla

When you simply have to know the precise hue of something online, Colorzilla’s eyedropper can check any pixel and tell you. You can then paste that colour’s data into another programme or adjust the values and save it within the extension for future reference. It’s an invaluable extension for digital design work. Get the extension here.

TinEye

When finding the source of a picture’s proving difficult, try TinEye’s reverse image search. It focuses on the closest possible matches instead of just similarity, making it useful for finding originals, higher resolution versions, or checking for online fakes. The extension itself makes searches available in only a couple of clicks. Install TinEye’s Chrome extension from here.

Unpaywall

For those who want to read academic papers without stumping up for subscription fees. As you look for research, this extension searches for free (and completely legal) versions of the same articles, and pops into view if it finds a match. A potential saver of both time and money. Get it here.

Save to Pocket/Instapaper

Either of these extensions will let you to save web pages and articles for reading on your synced devices later, even without an internet connection. Both have premium versions too, if you want to support the developers and get extra features in return. Get Pocket and Instapaper’s extension here.

The Great Suspender

It’s all too easy to open absurd numbers of tabs in your browser. The Great Suspender helps to manage your computer’s performance by stopping abandoned tabs until you click back on them. There is a lot of room for configuration too, the extension able to keep certain sites open indefinitely, or unload others after a shorter period of time. Install it here.

Backstop

It’s happened to all of us. One bad key press and you’re on the previous webpage and all the info you were just typing into that form has disappeared. This simple extension stops your backspace key from taking you to the previous page, saving you from wasted time and frustration. Get it here.

By Richard Priday

Sourced from WIRED

In News

8 of the best Google Chrome extensions to make your life easier

April 6, 2018 No Comments

By Richard Priday

Chrome is the biggest web browser. Use these extensions to get it to work for you

Chrome’s web store is full of little digital gadgets to help make your web browsing simpler, more productive, and more enjoyable. Here are our top eight extensions that tick those boxes and are all downloadable for free in a matter of moments.

LastPass

LastPass means you only have to remember one password to keep all your other login details together in one place. It will also help keep your other accounts secure by generating super secure passwords that it will fill in automatically as needed. There’s space for notes for offline information that you want to be well protected too. Install it here.

Colorzilla

When you simply have to know the precise hue of something online, Colorzilla’s eyedropper can check any pixel and tell you. You can then paste that colour’s data into another programme or adjust the values and save it within the extension for future reference. It’s an invaluable extension for digital design work. Get the extension here.

TinEye

When finding the source of a picture’s proving difficult, try TinEye’s reverse image search. It focuses on the closest possible matches instead of just similarity, making it useful for finding originals, higher resolution versions, or checking for online fakes. The extension itself makes searches available in only a couple of clicks. Install TinEye’s Chrome extension from here.

Unpaywall

For those who want to read academic papers without stumping up for subscription fees. As you look for research, this extension searches for free (and completely legal) versions of the same articles, and pops into view if it finds a match. A potential saver of both time and money. Get it here.

Save to Pocket/Instapaper

Either of these extensions will let you to save web pages and articles for reading on your synced devices later, even without an internet connection. Both have premium versions too, if you want to support the developers and get extra features in return. Get Pocket and Instapaper’s extension here.

The Great Suspender

It’s all too easy to open absurd numbers of tabs in your browser. The Great Suspender helps to manage your computer’s performance by stopping abandoned tabs until you click back on them. There is a lot of room for configuration too, the extension able to keep certain sites open indefinitely, or unload others after a shorter period of time. Install it here.

Backstop

It’s happened to all of us. One bad key press and you’re on the previous webpage and all the info you were just typing into that form has disappeared. This simple extension stops your backspace key from taking you to the previous page, saving you from wasted time and frustration. Get it here.

Feature Image Credit: WIRED / Google

By Richard Priday

Soured from WIRED

In News

Google AdWords Releases New Keyword Planner Tool

April 5, 2018 No Comments

By Matt Southern

Google has rolled out a rebuilt version of Keyword Planner, which is available now in the new AdWords experience.

Keyword Planner has been simplified, but at the same time offers new features to help advertisers glean more data from their search campaigns.

New features include the ability to add keywords in bulk and get an overview of forecasts in one place. Perhaps the biggest upgrades to Keyword Planner are the aesthetic changes, which are in line with the look and feel of the new AdWords experience.

You can see the new design, including the new forecasts section, in the example below:

In this example you can see how data has been condensed in the new forecasts section. It now includes an estimate of how keywords in the plan will impact performance, including a max CPC.

In addition, device and location breakdown are now readily available without having to click through to different menu tabs.

This new version of Keyword Planner first started becoming available to a limited number of users last month. It is now available for anyone with access to the new AdWords experience.

By Matt Southern

Sourced from Search Engine Journal

In News

Product Brand loyalty or blind loyalty: does it make sense?

April 4, 2018 No Comments

By JC Torres

What Microsoft feared nearly a decade ago has come true. The mobile market has become a two-horse race, with just some extras on the sidelines. With only Android and iOS really to choose from, who do you think has more loyal users? Apple is often cited for having fiercely loyal fans but, surprisingly enough, for the first time, Android loyalty has exceeded iOS 91% to 88%, respectively. But before either camp brings out the champagne or the pitchforks, one really has to ask: does it matter at all?

What happened?

To be clear, nothing really happened. The Consumer Intelligence Research Partners’ (CIRP) study shows that customer loyalty to either Android or iOS has been steadily on the rise. Except for a dip in iOS retention in late 2014. Perhaps if not for that temporary decline, iOS would have overtaken Android with that exact same growth rate.

And before Android users celebrate, CIRP co-founder Josh Lowitz has some insights that put that victory in a less impressive light. There are more Android users than iOS ones, that much is a fact. But to keep the iOS line growing stead, that would require an influx of more Android users switching to iOS. In contrast, Android needs less iOS refugees to keep its rate up. In other words, Android may have the higher numbers, but it may also have more people moving to iOS than the other way around.

For businesses

So what is all this Android vs iOS loyalty all about and does it even matter. For the businesses running or banking on Android or iOS, that’s a resounding yes. That means a big yes for Google, Apple, Samsung, and other Android OEMs. Brand loyalty means that people will keep using their products longer. That means, in a sense, locking them a lot longer into your services. That ultimately means making more money, or at least a steady influx of money.

Brand loyalty and customer retention are why companies work so hard to not only keep their current customers happy but to also convince those from the other side to jump ship. That last part is what sometimes causes tension, confusion, and sometimes even lawsuits, when companies fight and sometimes defame each other in order to pull their customers from other their grasp. In the Android versus iOS context, that usually involves things like saying how insecure one platform is or how closed off the other is.

For users

For users, however, brand loyalty is really nothing more than a badge, pretty much like sports team loyalty. Sometimes just as passionate, zealous, or even violent. It gives a sense of belonging or kinship to a group with similar interests and experiences. In practical terms, however, it matters very little.

iOS users are loyal to the iPhone because they don’t exactly have any other hardware to choose from. If someone else starts making iOS phones, especially better than Apple, you’ll see that iPhone loyalty wane instantly. Likewise, not all Android users are loyal to Android because of Android. Often they’re loyal to Pixels, Samsungs, LGs, Xiaomis, and the like. Often they might even be loyal to the brand of Android they only know from their OEM, not realizing how different Android might be from other OEMs.

Of course, there are those that are loyal to iOS or Android for the very platforms themselves. They agree with this or that way of doing things, of presenting things, of designing things. But then comes along a new version of iOS or Android that turns things around or yanks out those favorite features. Then you hear gnashing and weeping and the door slamming on the way out.

And then there are those who couldn’t care less about iOS or Android or Windows or Mac. It just so happens that the app they fell in love with or grew up with is only available in one particular OS. And when some of those become available in other operating systems, then the operating system becomes even less relevant. Then again, they might have become loyal to the app in the same way.

Blind loyalty

So what does brand loyalty bring? In this particular context, nothing relevant to users other than bragging rights. Indirectly, they do bring benefits, since consumer retention helps companies, which, in turn, retains or improves services that benefit users.

But not all those services are ultimately tied to those two platforms anyway. Brand loyalty, in fact, can actually become more harmful in some cases when they force users into a box of their own making. Some may never consider or use this or that app because it’s not made by this or that brand. Some won’t try out other phones because they’re too set in the ways of their old brands. Some would even go as far as admit that this or that OS is better but they’re not going to use it because it’s not iOS or Android.

Wrap-up: Breaking down barriers

We live in a world where the Internet has made the world a smaller place, where development happens at breakneck speeds, where features come and go, almost with no complete assurance they’ll be there in the next version. We live in an age that sticking to a brand just because of that brand no longer makes a lot of sense.

Of course, there will be the argument that so and so brand is synonymous with quality. As can be proven so many times, that is only true for so long. There’s no denying the fact that one brand, one platform, one app, will have better features and aspects than the others. But to equate those features to a brand and equate it for the long-term? Not exactly a sensible outlook.

Brand loyalty and customer retention are important for the companies that make these products, so hooray to the Googles, the Apples, and the Samsungs of the world. Those numbers, however, aren’t always representative of the actual quality of their products. More of then than not, it’s more representative of how good their marketing is.

By JC Torres

Sourced from SLASH GEAR