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Dashboard Reveals What Google Knows About You
CWmike writes "Ever wonder exactly what Google knows about you? Google took a step today to answer that question with the unveiling of Google Dashboard, which is designed to let users see and control the copious amounts of data that Google has stored in its servers about them. 'Over the past 11 years, Google has focused on building innovative products for our users. Today, with hundreds of millions of people using those products around the world, we are very aware of the trust that you have placed in us, and our responsibility to protect your privacy and data,' Google said in a blog post today. 'In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we've built the Google Dashboard.' Dashboard is set up so that users can control the personal settings in each Google product that they use. Google said the tool supports more than 20 products, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts and Google Latitude. Consumer Watchdog said in a statement today that it applauds Google for giving users a single place to go to manage their data. But at the same tine, the group also came down hard on Google, contending that it needs to give users a vehicle for stopping the company from collecting any personal data."
Because it wasn't in the summary, https://www.google.com/dashboard/ is Google Dashboard.
There are these new-fangled things called 'cookies', which get sent to Google every time you view one of their ads, which are on roughly 99.99% of web pages these days unless you block access to those servers.
"Web History" is what you were looking for. It is available at the dashboard.
It's the list of everything you searched through google when you were logged into your account, complete with dates. My backlog in there reached back to early 2007. Now I've deleted all entries and deactivated that "feature".
Were you always logged into your account when you used Google? My web history contained almost everything I ever searched through Google for the last years. It only had "holes" for some weeks in between, when I e.g. started to use another computer to go online and didn't bother to check my E-Mails or do anything else that would need me to enter my credentials.
No, its real utility is seeing what is publicly accessible. I didn't realise my Youtube account was sharing my name (username), age and gender publicly.
3 links, not a single one to the actual dashboard.
http://www.google.com/dashboard
my understanding is that they anonymize any logs that are not to be kept associated with any particular account. I don't know all the details, but they are apparently thorough enough that it's caused some consternation with some courts who have tried to subpoena logs as evidence, only to find that they couldn't get anything useful.
I don't have a link, but my recollection is that when their process was challenged (anonymizing after 30 days), they not only defended their right to do so, but also shortened the period to 15 days or some such.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Visit http://www.google.com/ncr (no country redirect) and google will no longer use your geolocation to determine what pages you want to see.
Cookies required
Probably because it's not enabled in the first place.
Try visiting http://www.google.com/history and see if the page suggests that you turn the service on.
Not entirely accurate.
Google anonymizes data that is older than nine months, unless said data is tied to a Google account.
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
Is that what you were looking for? http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=162743