: Google analytics/adwords account and leaking of private data I am frequently asked to log into clients google analytics and adwords accounts. If I forget to log out before visiting other google
I am frequently asked to log into clients google analytics and adwords accounts. If I forget to log out before visiting other google properties (google search, youtube etc), this leaves tracks of my views/searches etc, exposing my activities to the client.
Summary:
Client gives me access to their Google Analytics / AdWords account
I log into clients Analytics account and do some stuff
Then in another tab I perform some related google searches to solve some related issues
Issues solved, I then close the Analytics tab
I then visit google.com, perform some unrelated searches
I then visit YouTube, view some unrelated videos
All Web and YouTube searches are recorded in clients google account, thus leaking potentially sensitive data
Even assuming that I remember to log out correctly at step 4 (as I do 95% of the time), anything I do at step 3 is exposed to the client. I would be surprised if this is not a very common issue.
I'm looking for a technical solution to ensure that this can never happen. Any ideas?
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Asking clients to share their account information is asking for trouble - there is no reason that you should have this information (as you've noticed, it can lead to confusion and, if the client's account were to be accessed by an unauthorized party, you might be blamed).
Have your clients add your Google account as an authorized user instead:
Analytics - Add/modify/delete account administrators
AdWords - Share and manage levels of account access
Login at your clients' accounts, only at chrome incognito mode. It does not keep any cookie.
Use one browser only for your clients, such as Opera, use another for yourself, such as Chrome.
Sessions are not transferred between the Browsers.
You can tell google to disable the search history for those accounts, you can also use the disconnect plugin in your browser, which is designed to stop some of that snooping - no idea if it will stop google logging your search history for a logged in account but its worth a look.
It is because you forget to logout clients Google account. Google search and YouTube are services provided by Google. So if the history is ON on clients account it will store all the searches.That is what happened here.
I don't really have the same security issue, but I'm often logged into two accounts at the same time: My personal account with G+, AdWords, Analytics etc, and my AdWords MCC account (which requires a separate Google Account). My solution to the problem is to use two different browsers: I use Firefox and Chrome; the sessions are separated so shouldn't get mixed up. You should use one browser for your personal activity and another for your clients.
Another solution, although not quite so good, is to use separate Google top level domains: I don't think this works for all their services, but it should at least work for search. The cookies from google.com won't be passed to a regional site like google.co.uk or google.com.au, so you will start a new session.
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