For those of you who demand ultimate privacy and think it’s not right to follow your movements, and you have a smartphone, this new ‘driving’ feature is not for you. But if you are like me and have given into technology, Google Maps is here to help you make your life easier by helping you avoid traffic during your normal daily routines.
“If you’ve preset home and work in Google Maps, you’ll see ETAs at times when you’re likely to be heading to these destinations. If you have location history enabled, we base these suggestions on location data, time of day and day of week. And if you’re logged in, we’ll suggest destinations based on recent Google Maps and Google searches when you open driving mode.”
Google has already been helping predict what we are going to search on the internet, and now it is taking it one step further. All you have to do is create a shortcut on your homescreen.
To add a driving shortcut, press on your homescreen until Android widgets appear, then select the Google Maps driving shortcut icon.
You can also access this feature through the sidebar menu in Google Maps. Tap the sidebar menu and select the “Start Driving” option.
If you want to make sure Google is not following you they have made it easy to opt out of this feature. Otherwise, if you want a more informed path on your way home go ahead and enable this feature.
How to delete your location history
View your location history using Google’s web page.
Set a time period to view — up to 30 days at a time.
Select the period you want to delete.
Click the “Delete history from this time period” link on the left side of this page.
If you have multiple Google accounts, check the history for each one.
To turn off location tracking in Android
Go to the Settings app.
Scroll down and tap on the Location section.
Tap Google Location Reporting.
Switch Location History to “off.”
