Google's technology is difficult to avoid and has been used to track many of us, but the UK Supreme Court recently ruled that the tech giant does not owe users any compensation.
The court ruled in Lloyd vs Google that the legal judgement in by the Court of Appeal in 2019 - which could have seen iPhone users receiving up to £750 in compensation each - will now not take place.
Most online companies track your data in some way to personalise your web experience and tailor certain things to you and we often agree to it willingly. Google is no different.
So how do we stop Google from collecting our data?
Google maps - tracking your whereabouts
Google stores the exact coordinates of where you have been on the commonly used Google Maps app.
It can be a useful feature of the app in that it stores your previous trips, reminding you of where you were at one time and how you got there.
But you can work against this option if you wish to.
You can stop Google Maps using your GPS location, as well as turning off your location history
Make Use Of explains: "The Web and App Activity switch, however, is the most critical one here. Enabling it lets Google save all of your activities on any Google product or service. This also allows Google to share your location data between its own apps to offer a more personal experience."
All of these options can be turned off. To doe this, go to settings within the Google Maps app and click 'personal content'. Here you will find the relevant options you need to turn off.
Android users are still tracked even if they turn off their location settings. To counteract this, disable both 'Web & App Activity' and 'Location History'.
Your search history
This is a important one. Google tracks all of the things you search.
Visit the My Activity website and switch off Web & App Activity to stop your search history being followed. You can also delete your old history here.
The same goes for YouTube, just visiting 'settings' and then 'history and privacy'.
The popular browser Chrome also needs to be dealt with if you want to ensure all points are covered.
Make Use Of said: "To exclude Chrome history and your activity on various sites, visit the Activity Controls page and under Web & App Activity, disable the Include Chrome history option."
Useful tips
Don't just limit Google on one device, make sure all devices you use with a certain Google account have taken preventative measures.
Business Insider said: "There is an important exception: In the Location History settings, you can click "Devices on this account" to see all the phones and tablets being tracked.
"You can choose to uncheck any of those devices to stop Google from tracking it."
Make sure to take notice of other features on your Google account too like the 'Ad personalization' section, which can be turned off. Google photos you can "do nothing about", these are used for facial recognition. Only leaving Google will stop photos being processed.
Your questions listened to by Google Assistant are also stored, but you can turn this off in activity controls also.
The case against Google
Richard Lloyd brought the case against the firm on the behalf of four million people in England and Wales, claiming that Google secretly tracked the data of millions of iPhone users on the Safari web browser between 2011 and 2012.
Lloyd - a former director of consumer group Which? - alleged that Google gathered information on iPhone users who used the web browser and used it for advertising purposes.
The data consisted of information on people's health, race, ethnicity, sexuality and political affiliations.
Google has insisted that no information was shared to third parties.
The company said the data collection was accidental and the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that compensation was not owed as it was not clear that all of the individuals "suffered any material damage or distress".
Lloyd's solicitor James Oldnall, said: "The ruling today gives Google and rest of Big Tech the green light to continue misusing our data without consent, knowing they will go unpunished. It is a dark day when corporate greed is valued over our right to privacy."
