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Google Account Activity offers users insight

Google Account Activity offers users the chance to monitor their email statistics, search queries and more on a monthly basis.
Written by Rachel King, Contributor

Google Account Activity offers users the chance to monitor their email statistics, search queries and more on a monthly basis.

Google is on a roll today with new releases and updates. Along with the introduction of the e-discovery tool Vault for Google Apps customers, Google is providing a new stream of information to its users in the form of the Account Activity feature.

In what (thankfully) looks like an opt-in feature, users can elect to receive a link to a password-protected report with insights about their email stats, search queries and more when signed into their Google accounts. This report would be generated monthly.

Google product manager Andreas Tuerk offered some examples on the Official Google Blog as to what kinds of results users might find.

For Tuerk, he discovered the following:

My most recent Activity report told me that I sent 5 per cent more email than the previous month and received 3 per cent more. An Italian hotel was my top Gmail contact for the month. I conducted 12 per cent more Google searches than in the previous month, and my top queries reflected the vacation I was planning: [Rome] and [hotel].

Now, that might seem fun to some people or useless and tedious to others. Nevertheless, it has some potential benefits — especially as far as security is concerned.

For example, what if he had no recollection of contacting that hotel or making those searches? It could be a good reminder to always log out of your Google account when using a public computer in case you come up with some fishy results.

In other Google news, the Google Maps for Android app has been updated with several UI enhancements, including a new navigation interface, crisper and faster-loading maps, and the option to prioritise your transit modes when searching for directions.

Google Maps 6.5 for Android is available to upgrade for free now for Android 4.0+ smartphones.

Via ZDNet US

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