Google knows a lot about you even if you don’t have an Android phone. But if you do, it can feel a little too ‘big brother-y’ when you see notifications asking you to rate hotels, restaurants and other places you’ve visited.
Fortunately, it’s simple to disable those and reclaim a little privacy. The notifications are in fact from Google Maps, as Google uses your reviews – if you provide them – so other people can decide whether that sushi bar or tourist attraction is any good.
So, to get rid of those “How was Kath’s café?” messages, here’s what to do.
- Open Google Maps on your phone
- Tap the three horizontal lines at the top left and tap on Settings in the menu
- Tap Notifications
- Tap Your contributions
- Toggle Rate and review places to off
You will probably want to toggle off a lot of the other notifications as well, which will prevent Maps from asking you questions about places you’ve been to, photos of those places and plenty of other stuff.
There are other things you can do to stop Google tracking your movements, such as deleting your location history.
Author: Jim Martin, Executive Editor
Jim has been testing and reviewing products for over 20 years. His main beats include VPN services and antivirus. He also covers smart home tech, mesh Wi-Fi and electric bikes.