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Google Adds Search History Feature
Philipp Lenssen writes "Google has released My Search History (Beta). Login with your Google account (like your Gmail account), and a search history feature will be integrated right into the Google.com homepage. You can then retrieve pages you've previously found by either clicking on calendar dates, or by performing a full-text search. Other features are available as well."
Here comes the paranoia that google is tracking EVERYONEs searches..just hiding the fact from those who don't sign up for this.
- nick
And before you privacy nuts start freaking out, this isn't the start of search logging, as proven here they've been doing it for some time.
Hello, Web portal.
They had to do it sooner or later.
Hasn't a9 been doing this for some time?
I can think of quite a few searches I've run that I'd hate to be archived and cross-referenced against my name.
On the plus side, this always opens the door to hilarious new 'Paris Hilton's hacked t-mobile' type tomfoolery.
"From the i-can't-believe-its-not-butter department, Slashdot reader AnonymousCoward writes 'rofl! I haxored google history, and guess what, Linus was searching the net for patches to his Windows 2000 machine! omfgroflolololo!!!OPijsdf0+++NO CARRIER'"
Well, that, or horse porn.
It's annoying as hell, because it tries to auto-fill your searches. It does it at the worst times, too. I was sitting down with my g/f and was Googling for something and it was happily showing a list of things that I had searched for, giving away the fact that I was looking for restaurants to visit.
I'm just glad I wasn't Googling for "itch on my nads" or anything like that. Sheesh.
When this feature is enabled, Google adds an "onmousedown" event to the search result links which makes you hit their servers first, and then they redirect you to the page you requested. You might not even notice this is happening since you can't see in the status bar that the URL you are visiting is different. (And since they are not using any status bar text changing tricks to fool you, the Firefox settings to prevent people from changing the status bar text would have no effect, obviously.)
::cough michael ::cough) ought to love this.
I think this feature is pretty damn cool, and I have no reason not to trust Google will adhere to their privacy policy and not abuse this information. I am sure the privacy nuts (i.e. those that like to have knee-jerk reactions to anything that even hints at privacy implications
You can turn the tracking off easily by pressing the "pause" button in your Google History page, or by going to your google account settings and selecting "Delete History." I verified this causes the onmousedown code to disappear completely.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Yahoo is apparently rolling out a similar type service soon...don't see much use in looking up old searches frankly. Its probably more useful for these firms to collect data for advertisers than it is for aiding in my future data retrieval.
The question is not whether they store it or not, as that can be done in many ways. It's HOW. Think about it. If they store it in their Database, then they COULD use it. But, if they use cookies or the like, then they don't have it. Think about that before getting all freaked out about getting tracked.
Foxed Design
Clear history.
"Eh, honey, you see, my friend started this band named 'hot asian sluts,' so I was looking for their Web page."
"Every day for three months??"
"Um, yes. Sometimes well into that night. (Cough.)"
I find this funny because I've been using A9 for the longest time and it already does this. I wonder how many other features they'll borrow from A9?
If google tracks search terms, they've been hiding it very well.
paintball
If you don't want to be tracked on the Internet, there's a simple solution: don't have a static IP address and turn off cookies.
With that said, if you think this feature is a privacy issue, you should probably have your web browser history and cache disabled. I can't wait for a virus that emails the victim's history and cache to everyone in their address book. Hilarity would definitely ensue.
While the privacy issues were the first thing on my mind, something else occurs to me now. If Google is keeping track of search histories, aren't personalized searches the next step. If Google can tell what type of sites you like to use, couldn't they lean the search one way or the other?
This will drive the seo guys crazy.
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Someone should start it. Seriously, google seems to produce new things every two days or so.
No, you don't have to delete it. Just don't login. Duh.
Just another piece of information to be subpoenaed.
Lawyer: "Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, according to Google's records, the defendant clearly searched for 'download Briteney MP3,' which makes him guilty not only of attempted copyright infringement (punishible by up to three years in prison), but stupidity in the first and second degree, and one count of poor spelling."
Jury: "We find the defendant, Mr. John Dumas, guilty as charged."
Defendant: "It's pronounced Doo-maas!"
Judge: "Sentenced to time served closing popups."
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Am I the only one who saw Google Adds and thought, "typo..."
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I use Google at home, I use google at work.
Will google differentiate between my work box and home box. Will I get porn ads and what not showing up on the google screen while at work (potentially embarrising at best, could place my job in jepoardy based on my employers anti-porn/ anti things that don't belong in the workplace policy). The ads might be based on what I do in the privacy of my home, but this would be like a big electronic google cum stain showing up at work.
I probally should have posted this anonymously...
Just to clarify (disclaimer, I'm a happy A9 employee), A9 saves the search history on the server. The A9 toolbar (for both IE and Firefox) does allow you to access your history, but it is entirely optional. You can sign in to A9 using your Amazon account and try out that (and many more features).
Hmmm can I import all the old searches that Google has stored against my cookie?
If not, why not?
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4. What happens when I pause the service, remove items, or delete the My Search History service?
You can choose to stop storing your searches in My Search History either temporarily or permanently, or remove items, as described in My Search History Help. However, as is common practice in the industry, Google maintains a separate logs system for auditing purposes and to help us improve the quality of our services for users. For example, we use this information to audit our ads systems, understand which features are most popular to users, improve the quality of our search results, and help us combat vulnerabilities such as denial of service attacks.
Enphasis mine.
They don't give any information on what they do with that "separate log" when you delete your search history. Their unclear wording gives the impression that even if you delete it they still keep it in their "separate log". So how is that different than not deleting it at all, other that you will not see it anymore?
That is pretty confusing and very un-google like, IMHO.