I don’t want anyone following me on Google Maps, finding out where I’ve been. It’s scary and feel that I lost my privacy in posting my reviews.
Is it possible to turn it off?
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Hello @Sandra1961
Click your profile icon in the app & select setting —> Personal content —> Restricted profile.
Then click the toggle switch to activate that.
Once done, you can choose your followers or not have anyone.
BTW, In my opinion, that’s not the right thing to do. We post photos & reviews so that everyone can know something about places of interest. Locking the profiles would mean there wouldn’t be easy access to your contributions. Nevertheless, these would be visible at the POIs in any case.
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Thanks @C_T . I don’t clearly understand why by locking my profile to avoid any followers makes others can’t get easy access to read my reviews or see the photos? I don’t mind everyone read my reviews, I just don’t want anybody following me, coz it means that the follower can check all of my reviews, find out where have I been. I don’t want anyone stalking me on Google Maps. It’s creepy in my opinion. It’s totally different form following me on my social media. If I have no choice to avoid followers then I just don’t write any reviews for the places I don’t want anybody knows I’ve been visiting. That’s the only solution I guess?
2 Likes
Hello @Sandra1961
Once you restrict your profile, that will display a big lock to the public and the photos and reviews will not be visible directly.
Still, users can make a request to follow you and once approved by you, then only they can see everything.
Thus, you get control over who can access your contributions through the profile page.
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Hi @Sandra1961 ,
I am going to accept @C_T 's helpful response as a solution to your query. Please note that if you are not interested in having followers you can set their account to the restricted. This allows them to reject or disregard any future follow requests, however it’s not currently possible to remove the follow button from your profile.
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I don’t think it’s the right thing to do in restricting the followers account @LilyanaZ . I hope the options to enable and disable followers will be available as for other social media. It’s really breaching our privacy to be followed by others without our consent. Honestly I’m considering to deactivate my account because of this issue.
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Appreciate your concerns @Sandra1961
However, in my opinion, your anxiety is disproportionate.
Following things were happening even before the introduction of the “Following” feature, when someone did not keep the profile locked.
Anyone who comes across your photos or review could jump to the profile and read the entire content.
If the link from Connect is open, anyone going through the post or comments could visit the Maps profile.
The only change because of the “Following” feature is, some specific persons would come to know the new additions quickly, without going through the trouble of any stored link.
The significant difference between other social media types & Maps is, the former are user-centric, whereas Maps is POI-entric.
We are sharing experience & not opinions, thoughts or personal events. The readers are interested to know your experience at various POIs and not about you.
That’s another reason why the policies discourage sharing selfies & group photos.
Further, you can detach your rear world profile through the following measures.
Have a profile name which will not reveal the true identity of real you.
Avoid using a DP through which other people can discover you.
Further, you may also keep the link from Connect to Maps disabled.
And any case unless you tell, nobody can ever know your email ID & phone details.
In my opinion, these measures would be sufficient to protect privacy.
2 Likes
Thanks once again @C_T . How to disable Connect to Maps? I did the rest already though.
Thanks for the query.
Click on this link https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/Settings
& then click on the toggle “Show Google Maps link” to make that grey.
Then, no one can visit your profile page directly through Connect.