Google Auto-Delete Now Default For All New Accounts

Google's Sundar Pichai today suggested that the company "keeps more users safe by blocking malware, phishing attempts, spam messages, and potential cyber attacks than anyone else in the world." Pichai said that Google is focused on minimization, and that this focus pushes the company to "do more with less data." The most important point here, for this focus, is "Auto-delete."

All new Google accounts work with auto-delete by default. This is new. Two years ago at Google I/O 2019, Google introduced auto-delete as a feature that users could turn ON if they wished. With auto-delete, Google activity and history tracking in all Google services and apps could be deleted after a given amount of time.

With Google's auto-delete feature, all activity data is automatically and continuously deleted. Per Pichai, "we have since made auto-delete the default for all new Google accounts." Now, after 18 months, all user activity data is automatically deleted from Google accounts.

The auto-delete feature is now active for over 2-billion accounts, according to Pichai at Google I/O 2021. Pichai suggested this week that "all of our products are guided by three important principals." Those are Secure by default, Private by design, and "You're in control." Stay tuned as we learn more about what this means to Google products at Google I/O 2021.