Last Day To Tell Google To Forget You

itwbennett writes "Google's new privacy policy will consolidate all your data at google.com — unless you erase it first. And today is your last day to do it. The change goes into effect tomorrow. Which is why the helpful folks at EFF have posted some simple instructions showing how to delete your web history at Google."

Comments

Sign into my what?

[Kenja]

Gots no Google account, so does that mean they dont track me or that I cant erase the tracking data?

Re:Sign into my what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Re:Sign into my what?

[gnick]

Yes they track you - Or at least try as hard as they can. It also means that you're not really affected by this as the data is not associated with a Google account.

Re:Sign into my what?

[eternaldoctorwho]

For some reason, I read your post in the voice of Cotton Hill: "Ain't gots no Google account. They don't track me, I'm a war hero. I killed fiddy men."

Re:Sign into my what?

[supersat]

If you're not signed in, they store your history for 180 days, but you can opt-out of that without a Google account: http://www.google.com/history/optout

Re:Sign into my what?

[Anonymous Coward]

From their website: "Signed-out personalization: When you're not signed in, Google personalizes your search experience based on past search information linked to your browser, using a cookie. Google stores up to 180 days of signed-out search activity linked to your browser's cookie, including queries and results you click."

In my opinion, it doesn't matter if your signed in or not. they will get information. If you ask me, I think it's time to use some free web proxies even if you need to search on google. Proxies are easy to use now a days.

Re:Sign into my what?

[maxwell demon]

Nobody forces you to accept the Google cookie.

Re:Sign into my what?

[hydrofix]

I would also suggest setting your browser to delete all cookies when closing. By installing Cookie Monster for Firefox you can selectively allow some sites to set permanent cookies, that persist over browser sessions (e.g. your Slashdot login).

Re:Sign into my what?

[jason777]

Why the F does it tell me "This service is unavailable for *mydomain.com*" when I try to delete all my history???? F you google.

Re:Sign into my what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, you've been pwn3d by the arrogant Google assholes!

--
Jas

Re:Sign into my what?

[Tharsman]

You are not "affected" with them directly tracking you either.

Truth be told, if consider you are "affected" by tracking, you will still be "affected." There are some valid reasons to feel affected, too. Things like personal like sexual preferences or a teenager quietly getting pregnant and performing an abortion, these are things you rather keep to yourself but are not (at least in liberal eyes) wrong. Google may splash to your family by "accident" via targeted advertisement comes to mind, ironically it's even more likely to happen in a household with pure IP tracking (if everyone in the household has their web history turned off.)

In theory it may even sound better to keep the tracking on, but then it "is there", where someone may some day gain access and look at it.

Not everyone has these types of secrets or privacy concerns, but just because you have one does not mean it's invalid or you are a criminal.

Now on a separate note.... is there a way to download the history? I found interesting how far my history goes and would rather download it all than delete it, at least for the time being. I can’t find anywhere an option to download it, other than go page by page downloading the HTML pages... a bit too much for 5 years of history.

Re:Sign into my what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know it was possible but Google's been slashdotted. They should have really gotten more hardware to handle the increased unsubscribe load.

Re:Sign into my what?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not "affected" with them directly tracking you either.

Truth be told, if consider you are "affected" by tracking, you will still be "affected." There are some valid reasons to feel affected, too. Things like personal like sexual preferences or a teenager quietly getting pregnant and performing an abortion, these are things you rather keep to yourself but are not (at least in liberal eyes) wrong.

The fact that I watch "Jersey Shore" is personal and I wouldn't want other people to know. It's just that I watched the train derail already, then skid through a lot full of parked cars... I know if I just keep watching long enough I'll watch it actually wreck so I can't stop watching :)

For anyone knocking "Jersey Shore" this show is a pioneer! It's the first show to actually have "negative product placement". The cast is so douchy that A&F actually paid them not to wear their brand of clothing.

Re:Sign into my what?

[whereissue]

False.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Google-Sued-Over-Safari-Privacy-Snafu-395296/

Re:Sign into my what?

[Dupple]

I must've been paranoid for years

I've had a gmail account since at least 2005 and went to the link in TFA and discovered that I had never turned Web History on in the first place. Happy days. All I gotta do now is log out of gmail on March 1 and jobs done.

Re:Sign into my what?

[mrclisdue]

...selectively allow some sites to set permanent cookies, that persist over browser sessions (e.g. your Slashdot login).

B-b-but what if /. becomes *evil* and all the kewl kids find out that I'm not...?

Re:Sign into my what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he is talking about Google Apps account. I have same message:
This service is not available
Web History is not available for and is a Google Apps account

Re:Sign into my what?

[supersat]

... because you haven't enabled Web History for your domain, so there's nothing to erase.

If, for some reason, you want Web History enabled on your domain, you can do it from the domain control panel.

Re:Sign into my what?

[valkenar]

Erasing accidental flamebait mod

Re:Sign into my what?

[realityimpaired]

nobody forces you to keep it... if you configure your browser to make it go away when you close the browser (and there's even addons for Chrome/Chromium to do that), then the "history" only lasts as long as your browser is open.

Re:Sign into my what?

[Dahamma]

Why would they want to do that? ;)

Re:Sign into my what?

[chrismcb]

Things like personal like sexual preferences or a teenager quietly getting pregnant and performing an abortion,

Probably shouldn't shop at target then.

Re:Sign into my what?

[Rob Y.]

Me too. I went in to wipe out my history, and even though I have gmail and youtube accounts, there's no web history. Somewhere along the line the people stirring up Google paranoia neglected to mention that almost nobody has this 'web history' thing enabled. If I as a regular Slashdot reading google user was never prompted to set this up, and didn't even know how to get to the page where you set it up, I imagine the affected population's pretty small.

Am I missing something?

Re:Sign into my what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Same for me. I just checked the Google history page and it shows that I never had web history enabled. No worries for me.

Re:Sign into my what?

[Curate]

A: Nobody is forcing you to have shit all over your front door.

B: False. Some of the neighborhood kids like to come by and smear shit on my front door as a prank.

A: Nobody forces you to keep it.

B: Ah, very true.

Re:Sign into my what?

[desertfool]

I don't sign in to search (and started using DuckDuckGo a while ago), I run adblock and Ghostery. I remove google cookies all the time. What else should I be paranoid about?

They are being evil. Big time.

Re:Sign into my what?

[BasilBrush]

Right. I read these instructions and deleted my web history - which also apparently had the effect of "suspesding" the collection of more history . And then I thought what the hell, I'm fed up of Google's ever increasing spying on me. I'll delete my account as well.

And now you're telling me that deleting my account will mean they store my web history longer.

That's it. I've completely had it with Google now. After more than a decade I'm looking for a new search engine. Obviously not Bing - Microsoft are a despicable company too, but in different ways.

So, what non-Google and non-Bing based web search is good? Anyone got any recommendations?

Re:Sign into my what?

[SydShamino]

I found and wiped my web history a few months ago. My account was originally on blogspot and I never turned on web history, so I assume it was on by default for certain types of new accounts at certain times.

Re:Sign into my what?

[kiwimate]

You're lucky. I signed up for a GMail account in 2009 (so I could use Google Docs with some other people on a small project). Used it for two weeks while we were on the project, never logged in since. I hardly ever use any Google apps - I don't use their search, I don't use their Maps, I don't use GMail, blah blah blah.

A few months ago I read about how to check your Google history, went in out of sheer curiosity, total shock at just how much stuff they'd collected on me. Deleted it and told myself I really wasn't paranoid after all.

I don't know how you got away with it, but I can tell you they had a huge amount of info about me, and I somewhat actively avoid Google services. I am generally pretty blase about online tracking and the like - but that one gave me a jolt.

Re:Sign into my what?

[jdavidb]

Things like personal like sexual preferences or a teenager quietly getting pregnant and performing an abortion, these are things you rather keep to yourself but are not (at least in liberal eyes) wrong.

If liberals don't think that a teenager quietly getting pregnant is wrong, why are they so keen to hand out condoms in schools?

I had people act like my wife and I were wrong to get pregnant, when we were married and in our twenties! Apparently you are supposed to wait until you are fifty now, or something.

Re:Sign into my what?

[cold fjord]

Ever pull back a Slashdot post you made 10 minutes ago in a google search result? I have. Spooky... and disquieting.

Re:Sign into my what?

[maxwell demon]

Unfortunately that article contained zero information about what Google actually did. I don't know Safari, but if you can instruct it to not accept any cookie without you explicitly agreeing it should not accept any cookie without you explicitly agreeing. If it doesn't offer that possibility, get a better browser.

Re:Sign into my what?

[mysidia]

Yeah, but if you opt-out directly you wind up becoming part of Google's Opt-Out Village

Re:Sign into my what?

[Black Parrot]

If liberals don't think that a teenager quietly getting pregnant is wrong, why are they so keen to hand out condoms in schools?

a) Teenage pregnancy might not be a good idea, whether it's right or wrong?

b) Teenagers do get pregnant, whether it's right or wrong?

c) My big brother says condoms make the best water balloons?

d) No one should get pregnant "quietly", unless it's an artificial insemination?

Re:Sign into my what?

[Anonymous Coward]

^ This warrants an article; the main article is trolling; you should only have a history to delete if you enabled history in the past.

A title like "If you have a G web history; today is the last day to delete it" would probably be more in line with what a functioning brain would come up with.

The apocalyptic tone of the article to the effectively meaningless change is fundamentally just fear-mongering toward Google. Try harder next time.

Re:Sign into my what?

[ynp7]

For anyone knocking "Jersey Shore" this show is a pioneer! It's the first show to actually have "negative product placement". The cast is so douchy that A&F actually paid them not to wear their brand of clothing.

This is an amazingly insightful point.

Re:Sign into my what?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is wrong for an idiot like you to have children, and not only because you're married to your sister.

Re:Sign into my what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both of my newer google logins had it enabled, only the original one I set up didn't.

Re:Sign into my what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Firefox already have that without Cookie Monster?

Allow (never delete cookie)
Allow for Session (delete cookie on browser close)
Deny (no cookies)

Re:Sign into my what?

[PReDiToR]

If you're unlucky enough to be using MSFT Windows you can use a great little program called Sandboxie.
Run the browser without the sandbox to update, freshen AdBlock filters and set a few NoScript permissions, then back into the sandbox so nothing else is permanent.
Even safe enough to let your SO use after you've cleared the history!

The sandbox doesn't just run your browser, you can run keygens and other potential threats in there safe in the knowledge that 3 clicks will remove any malware that came with it. Great for testing whether an install is full of crapware.

Re:Sign into my what?

[TheCRAIGGERS]

Damn you, forcing me to undo mods with this post... but I can't help it.

Just how in the fucking hell do you expect Google to remember to not remember you if there isn't some place it can store that preference? And don't say cookies.

Re:Sign into my what?

[BasilBrush]

Without cookies it can't remember me at all. It doesn't know sent those search terms. (An IP address doesn't identify me or even my computer. Only the router I happen to be connected to at the time.)

I don't expect Google to store a preference of mine for them not to spy on me. I expect them not to spy on me unless I give them permission. And by closing my account, my intention is to withdraw all such permissions, implicit or implied.

And if you'd been following recent news, you'd know that Google has been doing an end-run around security policies in Firefox and Safari in order to do this. They are actually causing browser developers to look to changing how they implement standards in order to stop Google spying.

Google are now essentially a spyware company. Their "do no evil" promise is now a sad joke.

Re:Sign into my what?

[TheCRAIGGERS]

I'm not sure I totally agree with you. Google has always been about advertising and trying to serve up the most relevant ads. I don't view that as being evil, personally. Evil is selling my personal info to marketers and/or spamming me.

I'm making a big assumption here, but I'm just guessing that running a search engine is a HUGE task, requiring an obscene amount of resources. The agreement with Google has always been "I trade you a bit of my personal info for you providing this service" and I'm mostly OK with that because frankly, they provide a great service. Also, they tell me straight up how they'll be using it, instead of burying it in 50 pages of legalese or just lying about it outright. I appreciate that.

Anyway, the point is that until you start paying for access to a search engine service (do those even exist any more?) you might as well get used to it. Or, if you value your privacy that much, start using Tor or some other form of anonymizing service.

You say you don't want Google to spy on you without your express permission, but you are already giving them your express permission by using their service. That has always been the case.

Re:Sign into my what?

[BasilBrush]

No. The implicit agreement between Google and you is that they will show ads down the right hand side of the results page,relating to the particular search term you put in on that occasion. And if you click on them, Google earns money from the advertiser. That's the way Google did business for years.

Say for example I had a passing interest in vasectomies. Or abortions. Maybe it's been in the news. Maybe it's related to a friend. Or maybe maybe I'm at that moment considering one or the other. It's OK for Google to advertise specialist clinics next to the search results on those topics.

It's not OK for them to show me adverts of those clinics for the next 18 months. That is an invasion of my privacy.

Similar implicit agreements for contemporaneous advertising applies with Gmail, YouTube, Blogger etc.

I first became aware of Google's current spyware nature about a month ago. I'd got a Google+ account, Google was suggesting people that might be my friends. Included were a couple of people to whom I'm only related by the fact that for years I've occasionally visited their blog, from a bookmark, not a search. Blogs that weren't hosted by Google's Blogger service. To my knowledge I'd never searched for them, or if I had it was years ago. They weren't friends of friends. etc. Clearly Google were using some trick with analytics, cookies or some combination to profile me, and make tenous connections from my browsing activity. Browsing activity that wasn't actually on any of Google's own sites.

I don't want it, and I consider it stalking. Thus I'm severing my contacts with what I now consider to be an abusive company.

A few years ago I would never have thought possible. I used to consider Google one of the good guys, and was considering buying shares. But something's gone badly wrong. I now hope everything goes wrong for them and they go bankrupt.

Re:Sign into my what?

[KingBenny]

good question, i erased my G+ accounts a few months ago ... should i be worried they still keep the data even if i explicitly asked to delete it back then? i dont see how they can do this if there's any law protecting privacy ... its like, you can't 'dicslaim' a law even if people agree to your policy and it opposes some law its still considered invalid ... that's usually how it works but in the last year of corporacracy everything's gotten a little blurry ... skynet is no longer a funny meme from an old movie

Re:Sign into my what?

[TheCRAIGGERS]

The problem with implicit agreements is that both parties can have their own versions. Which is what we have here.

Personally, I view the stuff like G+ suggesting people involved in previous searches just part of the service that Google is providing. I don't use it, but I can easily see how others could. It's not much different from the ability that Facebook has to suggest people based on various criteria, and I've never seen anybody get up in arms about that. Although granted, that is facebook, and this is a search engine.

It all comes down to personal taste., and the price we are wiling to pay for Google's services. You have reached the point where you're no longer willing to pay their asking price, and that's fine. I guess I'm still OK with the price I'm paying. Another year from now... who knows.

However, I still think you're deluding yourself about the changes in Google. There are no changes; they've just gotten better at what they do. And that is to consolidate all the various bits of information you choose to give them, compile it, and use it as part of their services that you are consuming.

Re:Sign into my what?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Now on a separate note.... is there a way to download the history?

Well kind of, at least a tiny piece of it: http://www.dataliberation.org/google/web-history
https://www.google.com/history/lookup?q=&output=rss&num=1000000

It's hardly the whole history. I tried mine with num= set to 1 million and got 25 results. That doesn't even get me back to last night, much less 2001.

Re:Sign into my what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just use a separate browser that deletes cookies/history on exit to log in to my Google account.

Re:Sign into my what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could be wrong, but I think this was an opt-out situation. I signed in to clear my history and didn't have any. Upon seeing the page, though, my memory was jogged and I'm pretty sure I recall logging into that at least a couple years ago and actively deleting my history and turning the saving of web history off.

Re:Sign into my what?

[BasilBrush]

Personally, I view the stuff like G+ suggesting people involved in previous searches just part of the service that Google is providing. I don't use it, but I can easily see how others could. It's not much different from the ability that Facebook has to suggest people based on various criteria, and I've never seen anybody get up in arms about that.

I use both. Or at least I did till I deleted my Google account yesterday. Facebook has never spooked me out for spying the way Google+ did. With Facebook it's obvious and acceptable. It's using information from within Facebook. They recommend possible friends because you have a number of friends in common. I can't remember having been recommended a friend that hasn't been a friend of a friend. Maybe they up the probability if you went to the same school, or like the same things, I don't know. But that all seems fair.

Google+ are doing it by spying on your web habits when you are not on Google sites. That is completely unacceptable.

It may be that you just haven't experienced that uncanny moment yet. As I said I too used to be happy with Google a while ago. But when you have your own moment of realising that Google knows something about you that they shouldn't, you might change your mind, just as I did.

It all comes down to personal taste., and the price we are wiling to pay for Google's services. You have reached the point where you're no longer willing to pay their asking price, and that's fine. I guess I'm still OK with the price I'm paying. Another year from now... who knows.

I think that's exactly it. You haven't experienced that uncanny moment of realising that Google knows something about you that they shouldn't. When it happens, you might well change your mind, just as I did.

However, I still think you're deluding yourself about the changes in Google. There are no changes; they've just gotten better at what they do. And that is to consolidate all the various bits of information you choose to give them, compile it, and use it as part of their services that you are consuming.

No, you're wrong. I know from personal experience, I spotted it a few weeks ago. Then a few days ago this:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577225380456599176.html

Soon after that, it was discovered that Google was using a slightly different trick to get around Firefox security settings. And IE was allowing to do the same thing without tricks.

They are spying on you when you're on sites other than Google's own, even if you set your browser up to be secure and not allow that. You might not have known that up to now, but it is the case.

And I'm not some security nut. Ordinarily I'm on your side thinking that people on Slashdot are ridiculously overreacting on privacy issues. This one surprised me.

Today is Feb. 29?

[Relayman]

I'm confused. The new policy goes into effect March 1 and today is the last day to erase the old?

Re:Today is Feb. 29?

[Chemisor]

Yes, many people have trouble adjusting to leap years.

Re:Today is Feb. 29?

[Anonymous Coward]

As an easy way to defeat Google's tracking, I always change the date back one week.

And use your computer.

Re:Today is Feb. 29?

[kdemetter]

I think this was posted a week early ?

Re:Today is Feb. 29?

[Baloroth]

They're just making it easier for when they dupe this story next week. They won't even have to change the summary at all!

Re:Today is Feb. 29?

[rubycodez]

whot we haf hyar is one those damned Leap Weeks

Re:Today is Feb. 29?

[MarkGriz]

as opposed to the usual week late. Man this place is going downhill.

Re:Today is Feb. 29?

[gstrickler]

No, they posted it a week early because they know it often takes several days for it to appear on slashdot.

Of course, slashdot readers will make sure that as many people as possible know about it.

Done.

[NIN1385]

I already did this years ago, but thank you for pointing it out to those who were not aware of such a setting. I'm sure the government is still monitoring all of this through Echelon though, which makes this meaningless.

Did I say that out loud? Shit sorry.

Re:Done.

[Isaac Remuant]

Same here, I will be sharing it with some people who I think will find it interesting but might not have done so yet.

Re:Done.

[mrstrano]

Ha! Echelon! Didn't you get the memo? The project was renamed about 8 years ago, now it's called Facebook.

Re:Done.

[almitydave]

According to at least one newspaper, Facebook has drastically cut the CIA's domestic intelligence gathering costs.

(The Onion wins again)

Re:Done.

[NIN1385]

Guess it's a good thing I don't participate in that "Social Network".

I am paranoid enough about my cellphone.

Re:Done.

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't care.
If a government or some corporation decides to mess with me, I'm pretty much fucked anyway, so them having that data wouldn't change things in any way.

Re:Done.

[Anrego]

I wonder if using https defeats this.

That said, I don't bother. Most of my searches fall into the category of:
- clueless care newb questions
- obscure linux issues
- guitar related

In principle I think people have a right not to be tracked, to control data about them, and I definitely don't agree with this "nothing to hide" shit.. privacy shouldn't require a reason, it should be a basic right. In practice.. I'm a very boring person with very little to hide and no inherent desire for privacy. I see no way in which I'm personally harmed by the data I know people are collecting.. if I had the option to opt out or opt in, I'd probably still let them collect the data.

Re:Done.

[Anrego]

clueless car newb questions

Sigh..

Re:Done.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I'm a very boring person with very little to hide and no inherent desire for privacy. I see no way in which I'm personally harmed by the data I know people are collecting.. if I had the option to opt out or opt in, I'd probably still let them collect the data.

The problems start the day you become not boring. You never know when you will become a person of interest. Run for office, start a succesful business, date a girl wtih a pyscho-ex, save a kid's life in some dramatic way, whatever. It may not even be under your control - you might just cross paths with the wrong guy - a wrong place, wrong time sort of thing.

However it happens, if it ever happens, you can be sure that all that boring information will suddenly become extremely interesting to some people, people who will dig through as much of it as they can get their hands on looking for any thing they can possibly use to harm, or at least get leverage on, you or your family. Maybe all your boring details will still be just as boring, but you really can't predict what a motivated person or organization will be able to come up with given years of historical details about you.

Most people never will become a person of interest.
But those who do, will be screwed.

Re:Done.

[Daniel Phillips]

That particular information is not passed to advertisers so it's all good isn't it.

Re:Done.

[Toshito]

Echelon, Facebook, and the next version will be named Google...

Looks an awful lot like the Android naming scheme to me!

Re:Done.

[filthpickle]

Most of my searches fall into the category of:
- car midget porn questions
- obscure linux midget porn
- guitar related midget porn

FTFY.

You know, ofc, I did this just to be an ass....but now that I read it, "obscure linux midget porn" is actually funny as fuck.

Re:Done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to burst your bubble but we're too busy spying on people who are actually interesting.

A good rule of thumb is: if someone (a) reads Slashdot and (b) thinks the government is monitoring their web searches through ECHELON, they probably aren't interesting.

Sincerely,

NSA, GCHQ, CSEC, DSD, and GCSB

PS. We actually stopped bothering with step "b" years ago.

Re:Done.

[dido]

Qu'on me donne six lignes ï½crites de la main du plus honnï½te homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre. -- Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac. If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. It is even more true today than it was in the 17th century, especially when places like Google have way, way more than six lines typed by your hand.

Re:Done.

[GLMDesigns]

Beautifully put. Thank you.

Re:Done.

[ynp7]

So what kind of dessert is a Facebook? Does a Google contain dairy? I'm allergic, you insensitive clod!

Re:Done.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a very boring person with very little to hide and no inherent desire for privacy.

No doubt, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher thought the same about himself — until he met Candidate Obama in his neighborhood and had the temerity of asking him the wrong questions...

He became "Joe the Plumber" and the supposedly private information about him suddenly became very very public — much to his discomfort.

Another man several years earlier was running for office and saw his divorce records leaked/released to the press — he wanted his (now ex-) wife to perform sex acts on him...

These are two examples of government leaking our secrets. I don't have examples of corporations doing the same, but I'm sure, there are some. Better for them to not have anything, than to be tempted (or tricked) into releasing it into the wrong hands.

Re:Done.

[Anrego]

Mmm, that is a good point.

What history?

[Moses48]

I followed their steps, except I don't have any History to delete. Wasn't this an opt-in thing? I know I never opted-in/out and I don't have any history myself.

Re:What history?

[supersat]

I believe it was opt-in for a long time, but then it became opt-out for (new?) accounts. The change was announced here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html

Re:What history?

[harperska]

This does in fact appear to be true. I happen to have two google accounts, as I have two @gmail.com addresses. When I went to the newer one, my entire search history was there as I apparently didn't realize I had to opt out when I set it up. It has now been deleted per the EFF instructions. When I logged in to the older one, it said web history wasn't enabled, and so that account must have been created while web history was still opt-in.

Re:What history?

[cicuz]

Same here... Only both my accounts seem to still be needing to be enabled.. Where can I find out when they were created?

ummm...someone can't read a calendar

[Anonymous Coward]

Next thursday is March 1, not tomorrow. New policy goes into effect NEXT thursday, not tomorrow.

Re:ummm...someone can't read a calendar

[careysub]

Next thursday is March 1, not tomorrow. New policy goes into effect NEXT thursday, not tomorrow.

Not according to the definitions in any dictionary I have at hand. E.g.: Dictionary.com:

adjective: 1. immediately following in time, order, importance, etc.: the next day; the next person in line.

Tomorrow is the Thursday immediately following in time. I cannot find any dictionary carrying the definition you are using.

Nonetheless - I am familiar with the idiom, based on the usage I have heard I suspect it is endemic to the American South - and its illogicality annoys the heck out of me. Is the house next door the one you reach after a passing the house immediately adjacent to yours?

Re:ummm...someone can't read a calendar

[realityimpaired]

You're either not an English native speaker, being intentionally pedantic, or trolling. I'm not sure which. I'll try to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Idiomatically speaking, in English (and most languages I speak, actually), when you refer to next + day of week, you mean X day, next week. The same holds true for French, Spanish and German (at least, I don't speak other languages), and is a speech pattern that predates the discovery of the Americas. So no, it's not something that's endemic to the American South, it's something that you'd have to have been living under a rock to have never heard in the English language.

If it helps you sleep at night, consider it an ellipsis. Next Thursday = "Next week, Thursday". English is lazy like that. When you say it's happening on Thursday, the "next" you're looking for is implicit. Similarly, because it's implicit when you simply say "Thursday", its presence indicates that the phrase has a different meaning.

Re:ummm...someone can't read a calendar

[quenda]

in English (and most languages I speak, actually), when you refer to next + day of week, you mean X day, next week.

So if it is Monday, "next Thursday" is 10 days away, and on Fridays "next Thursday" is 4 days away, not 11 !? Never heard that one.

Not to this native speaker (in Oz). I'd usually say "next Thursday" on a Thursday, to mean a week from now.

If you want to talk 10 days ahead, that is "a week from Sunday", or some people would say "Sunday week" for short. I have heard the "next Sunday" usage for that somewhere (immigrants?) but it is unusual and confusing.

 

Re:ummm...someone can't read a calendar

[gnapster]

Of course, what is missing is how how you refer to the impending Thursday when "next Thursday" refers to the immediate Thursday plus a week. The idiom is "this Thursday" for the Thursday of this week and "next Thursday" for the Thursday of next week.

Tried to

[fph il quozientatore]

tried to, but it turned out I never enabled this "history" in the first place (or at least Google says so). Am I safe?

Re:Tried to

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine also appeared to not be enabled. I was wondering if it was really enabled and Google was just obfuscating it from me, so I enabled it and now it's just Paused with no history.

[tinfoil] Looks like the eff is in cahoots with Google to get idiots like me to enable Google history [/tinfoil]

Re:Tried to

[Darinbob]

I never enabled either. I do not ever remember visiting that page or knowing anything about the concept, and yet it was already disabled for me.

Re:Tried to

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's impossible to turn off after you enable it.

Still tracking no doubt...

[Oswald McWeany]

Still tracking people no doubt, just now the web history is tied to ip address/computer and not to user account.

Less valuable to them because ip addresses arn't typically static.

Re:Still tracking no doubt...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea but they still have other cookies, like the Google Analytics one, which can trace you between IPs...

Re:Still tracking no doubt...

[Anonymous Coward]

Add:

*googlesyndication.com*
*google-analytics.com*
*googleadservices.com*
*googleadservices.com*

to your ad blocker.

Re:Still tracking no doubt...

[Anonymous Coward]

And while you're at it, install Moxie Marlinspike's "GoogleSharing" extension to firefox, Noscript, and RequestPolicy, and be sure never to allow those domains through, on top of clearing cookies on browser exits (and hey, go ahead and always enable private browsing for good measure). This be the way of the tinfoil hat crowd, and it appears to work like a charm.

Which is it?

[eternaldoctorwho]

The article says this new policy goes into effect March 1st. Today is February 22nd, and tomorrow is the 23rd.
02/23/2012 != 03/01/2012
They need to recheck their logic.

YouTube

[tsa]

I don't want Google to track me but I do like my YouTube account. So I'm stuck a bit...

Re:YouTube

[Rary]

Google can only associate your searches with your account if you're logged in. If you don't want them to remember your searches, don't log in. Log in to use YouTube when you want to, then log out when you're done.

Re:YouTube

[tsa]

That's what I always do. I never log into Google itself. But it would be nice if they were two separate things like in the old days.

Re:YouTube

[hawguy]

Google can only associate your searches with your account if you're logged in. If you don't want them to remember your searches, don't log in. Log in to use YouTube when you want to, then log out when you're done.

I don't think that's true, Google *can* associate your searches with your account whether or not you are logged on. I don't know if they *do* associate searches with your account when you're not logged on, but there's no reason why they couldn't do it if they wanted to.

You'd have to delete all of your Google cookies to prevent this. And even then, it's no sure thing, they could look at your IP address and browser ID to do a pretty good job of correlating your activity with your Google account even without a cookie.

Re:YouTube

[Baloroth]

Use two separate browsers. You might even be able to find an extension for Firefox that allows you to sign into Youtube but doesn't have the other tabs be signed in when visiting Google (at least, I think this is possible). Privacy mode I know works like that in Opera ( so I could sign in under a private tab in Youtube and use Google under a normal tab and wouldn't be signed in), not tried it under Firefox.

Re:YouTube

[tsa]

You don't need a plugin for that. All tabs operate independently.

Re:YouTube

[KiloByte]

Your IP still stays the same... As, especially at the beginning, most people don't have a Google account, so they track using IP. It might be less reliable than the account or a cookie, but there's no way they'd skip this possibility. Profit on targetted ads/etc against those with cookies off (~10% of all users) is not something to shake a stick at.

Re:YouTube

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Google can only associate your searches with your account if you're logged in. If you don't want them to remember your searches, don't log in. Log in to use YouTube when you want to, then log out when you're done.

I run two different browsers. I have Chrome dedicated to email and Opera dedicated to my daily browsing. I believe this separation helps keep things on the level.

Re:YouTube

[meeotch]

I'm using Windows Firefox v10, and this is not true for me. Open google tab, sign out, open youtube tab, sign in, refresh google tab = it's now signed in.

However, Chrome will allow you to open an "Incognito" window with Ctrl-Shift-N. The cookie-blocking feature of which seems to keep google signed out, even if opened from a signed-in window.

Re:YouTube

[Baloroth]

They track everyone by IP, signed in or not, and there is nothing you can do to change that (it's just part of Google's business model: the price of free services). However, without a sign-in they cannot point to an individual, only an IP, and IPs change and are often shared.

Re:YouTube

[Wootery]

Entirely different cookies, and different browser, might be enough to look like a different user, but I don't think there's any way to be sure.

I do something similar - I tend to use Chrome, with a Private Browsing window for Gmail. The disadvantage of this is that it's still the same browser, the same version, the same OS, and so will have the same 'signature', which Google might make use of. The EFF have done some work on this kind of thing, with Panopticlick.

Re:YouTube

[DragonWriter]

I don't think that's true, Google *can* associate your searches with your account whether or not you are logged on.

They can associate searches with your account when you aren't logged on, but they don't know that they were done by you or by anyone who would have access to your account, so doing so would be somewhat pointless.

Even assuming you have a single machine with a static IP, its quite possible that machine has multiple users, and that the people using your browser when you aren't logged in aren't you. In fact, its possible that multiple different Google Accounts are regularly used from the same machine, leaving Google no reliable way to associate non-logged-in searches with a single Google Account even on the (shaky) assumption that all searches from that machine are linked to the holder of oneof the Google Accounts which are sometimes logged into from that machine.

Re:YouTube

[hawguy]

I don't think that's true, Google *can* associate your searches with your account whether or not you are logged on.

They can associate searches with your account when you aren't logged on, but they don't know that they were done by you or by anyone who would have access to your account, so doing so would be somewhat pointless.

Why do you think that's true? Do you think they are unable to set a cookie that remembers your identify even after you log off? Right now I have cookies from 19 different domains that have the word "google", including 31 cookies from google.com. Why should I assume that none of those cookies remember who I am even when I log off?

I cleared all of my cookies, logged in to Gmail, logged out again and I still have 19 different cookies for various Google domains. Some are set to expire when I close my browsers, others don't expire for a year.

Even assuming you have a single machine with a static IP, its quite possible that machine has multiple users, and that the people using your browser when you aren't logged in aren't you. In fact, its possible that multiple different Google Accounts are regularly used from the same machine, leaving Google no reliable way to associate non-logged-in searches with a single Google Account even on the (shaky) assumption that all searches from that machine are linked to the holder of oneof the Google Accounts which are sometimes logged into from that machine.

Granted, it's not foolproof, but the EFF claims that 84% of users can be identified by browser characteristics:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/17/browser_fingerprint/

Re:YouTube

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to http://www.youtube.com/my_search_history and click "pause history" then "clear history" no more tracking on youtube.

Re:YouTube

[DragonWriter]

Why do you think that's true?

Because its absolutely and obviously true.

Do you think they are unable to set a cookie that remembers your identify even after you log off?

I don't think a cookie that remembers the identity of the last Google Account user that was logged into a browser is a particularly reliable indicator of the identity of the current browser user on a machine that has multiple users.

Obviously, they could associate not-logged-in searches with a Google Account based on all kinds of criteria -- IP address, presence of a cookie, etc. They could even randomly associate non-logged in searches to an account.

But none of those methods actually reliably associate the searches of the not-logged-in Google Account user who is, in fact, performing the search with their Google Account.

Granted, it's not foolproof, but the EFF claims that 84% of users can be identified by browser characteristics

First, being wrong in 1 in 6 cases is not merely "not foolproof", but its fairly inaccurate.

Second, what the radically unscientific test referred to actually demonstrated is that 84% of visits (not visitors) to a web site had browser characteristics that didn't exactly match a database of tested browser characteristics. It has no way of identifying whether those visits (whether the ones with unique browser characteristics or not) were from the same or different users as other visits.

That doesn't say anything at all about the utility of using those browser characteristics to identify users, since nothing in the test relates actual users to those visits or the associated browser characteristics. (One user can easily have many different sets of browser characteristics, and vice versa, without any impact on the results of that test in terms of the uniqueness in browser characteristics among visits to that EFF site.)

So, while the EFF may make a claim about the identifiability of users based on those results, the results themselves don't even remotely support any conclusion about users.

Re:YouTube

[SydShamino]

Err.. no? I regularly have multiple tabs open for a given site, and sign in on one of them. Then I just have to go to the other tabs and reload them and they're all logged in.

I don't think cookies are restricted to per-tab by default. Maybe there's a way to turn this one without a plugin, but saying "All tabs operate independently" implies it does this automatically.

Re:YouTube

[tsa]

That's strange. You're right. I never noticed that before. Very inconvenient I must say.

But it's disabled already

[eminencja]

I signed it to gmail and went to this URL but it's telling me my web history is disabled. I have never disabled it myself so could it be disabled by default?

Re:But it's disabled already

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. Didn't had an option to clear it, only to enable it.

Re:But it's disabled already

[mvar]

Yes, web search history is disabled by default. So unless you were asking Google to track down your searches, you're safe.......Or you think you are safe, I bet that they keep your search history no matter of your preferences. Probably for "national security" reasons

"Paused" web history.

[Animats]

Just did that. But I'd done it already, and Google claims my web history is "paused". Which probably means they will "unpause" it silently at some future time.

There's this annoying trend towards invisible buttons for things web sites don't want you to do. There's no obvious "sign out" button for Google now. Clicking on your user name will get you to a sign-out option, but it's not obvious. Facebook actually has invisible buttons for opting out of ads. (They're at the right of the ad headline. Mouse over that blank area and a "x" will appear. Click on the "x" and some opt-out options will appear. They don't actually make the advertiser go away, though.)

Re:"Paused" web history.

[TheGratefulNet]

Just did that. But I'd done it already, and Google claims my web history is "paused". Which probably means they will "unpause" it silently at some future time.

you lucky bastard!

mine is stuck, blinking at twelve. HELP!

Re:"Paused" web history.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why you have at least two browsers installed. One is your hardcore locked down browser for when you have to do stuff involving personal information (only have one window open at a time, no cache, and delete cookies on exit, and some form of script blocking installed, preferably also blocking 3rd party frames/images.) Then you have another one with everything except the script blocking in place, used for non-identifiable web browsing (obviously still identifiable, but only for linking browsing habits together, not also linking it to you.)

While this obviously will have limited effect on the overarching data mining that is possible today, it will obfuscate it enough to keep them from being on a first name basis with you and your browsing habits if handled carefully.

Re:"Paused" web history.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm actually pretty hopeful (relatively speaking). It seems I did this so long ago that I forgot about it and it's still disabled. Now, I'm sure they still have plenty on me they won't tell me about but at least they didn't randomly turn it on again.

Re:"Paused" web history.

[Taibhsear]

From Google's privacy FAQ page, they conveniently dodge the question of what pausing does.

What happens when I pause the service, remove items, or delete the Web History service?

You can choose to stop storing your web activity in Web History either temporarily or permanently, or remove items, as described in Web History Help. If you remove items, they will be removed from the service and will not be used to improve your search experience. As is common practice in the industry, Google also 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.

Re:"Paused" web history.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just did that. But I'd done it already, and Google claims my web history is "paused"

It goes to a paused state when you delete it. That happneed last time or the first time you deleted it.

Re:"Paused" web history.

[swillden]

Google claims my web history is "paused". Which probably means they will "unpause" it silently at some future time.

Because Google has a long history of silently changing your privacy settings? Just like they quietly updated their privacy policy, without telling anyone?

Re:"Paused" web history.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they explain it in the first sentence of the answer you quoted:

"You can choose to stop storing your web activity in Web History either temporarily or permanently ...."

where is the REMOVE option?

[tommeke100]

I went to the history page, but there is no "remove all Web History" button or menu-item. Am I screwed already? did they remove the option?

Re:where is the REMOVE option?

[Anonymous Coward]

you have to "Edit" your Google Products

and then you will have the option to delete Web History from what i guess can only be referred to as Google plug-ins or Google modules

that should work for you

cheers

Re:where is the REMOVE option?

[dcollins]

For older accounts, this was never on in the first place (and thus nothing to remove or pause). Newer account have it opt-out (and thus on by default).

Re:where is the REMOVE option?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.google.com/dashboard/

Re:where is the REMOVE option?

[tgd]

I'm not sure if that's true -- my account was an internal (non-public) beta account when they first opened to friends and family, and it was on for me.

I don't think its an age thing, I think its just a matter of if you ever turned it on by installing Google Toolbar, etc ...

What will happen if you already disabled it?

[Certhas]

Do we have any info that you wont be able to disable web history after the change? Or delete it afterwards? That would seriously change my googling habits actually.

Mine was already empty and paused

[jupiterssj4]

Do I win?

i told them to forget me

[nimbius]

about a year ago when i closed my google account(s). same with facebook, although if their shadow-profiling is any indication of 'how its done' then you can expect google to start silently tracking the same inferential data about you as a person instead..

either may have started as amicable services, but both have rapidly evolved into a flagrant, unapologetic breeches of privacy.

Re:i told them to forget me

[Dwedit]

You can't escape The Google.
View any website with an ad from doubleclick.com? Google knows it, and what site your were visiting at the time.
View any website with a ReCaptcha? Google knows what site you were visiting at the time.
View any website that hotlinked the Google logo?
Site using Google-Analytics or Google APIs?

Now sit back and enjoy your Kool Aid.
Or use Adblock, Noscript, and RequestPolicy to block third party use of Google. But too bad if you actually need to fill out a ReCaptcha to register or post somewhere, or use a website that depends on Google APIs.

Re:i told them to forget me

[assertation]

What do you use for web based email?

Re:i told them to forget me

[ffflala]

When it comes down to it, all breeches are breeches of privacy.

Re:i told them to forget me

[UnknownSoldier]

> You can't escape The Google.

Huh, you DO know about to block most of that crap, right??

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

or

http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/

doubleclick.com? BLOCKED.
Google-Analytics? BLOCKED.

Problem solved.

Re:i told them to forget me

[swillden]

if their shadow-profiling is any indication of 'how its done' then you can expect google to start silently tracking the same inferential data about you as a person instead

If you're using Chrome, install the "keep my opt outs" extension. It'll make sure that the "do not track me" cookie is always set, so none of your searches or other information will be logged.

Re:i told them to forget me

[Anonymous Coward]

Use Chrome? No thanks. It's easier for me to use Firefox, Noscript and Ghostery to prevent the omnipresent Google Analytics shit from doing any harm and, at the same time, never use any products from the arrogant Google assholes. I'm very happy with DuckDuckGo and stopped using GMail a while ago. Stopped being interested in G+ the moment the Vic Gundotra shithead started alienating users with his moronic Real Names policy.

--
Care about your privacy? Say NO to the Google creeps!

Re:i told them to forget me

[cdrguru]

One other thing you need to add: search any site that feeds information back to Google.

Two that I know of are Amazon and Newegg. Do any search there and you will start seeing ads for what you searched for on every Google ad site there is. Not sure if they are paying Amazon and Newegg for this information or what, but I would imagine any online merchant of any size is feeding their searches into Google for tracking and such.

They probably connect it up with the credit card information so Google has your name and address to go with your salable information. Important for good demographics. There is no point in sharing the credit card number - the fact that you are searching for high-end tequila from a particular zip code is more valuable than your credit card number anyway.

Cee-Lo Green said it best.

[nitehawk214]

I see you driving ’round town
With the girl i love and i’m like,
Forget you!
Oo, oo, ooo
I guess the change in my pocket
Wasn’t enough i’m like,
Forget you!
And forget her too!
I said, if i was richer, i’d still be with ya
Ha, now ain’t that some shhh? (ain’t that some shhh?)
And although there’s pain in my chest
I still wish you the best with a
Forget you!
Oo, oo, ooo

However I agree more with the original lyric.

Re:Cee-Lo Green said it best.

[webheaded]

We're all adults here...I'm pretty sure you can use fuck. The song sounds really stupid when you use the version with words replaced. :p

Re:Cee-Lo Green said it best.

[Kozz]

We're all adults here..

You must be new here.

Re:Cee-Lo Green said it best.

[Pope]

Hey, he's just trying to get it started in here!

Re:Cee-Lo Green said it best.

[saskboy]

I had the same thought, so I did a search before posting, and you sir took my idea before I had it! You should work at Google if you don't already, because they do that to me as well.

Re:Cee-Lo Green said it best.

[dcollins]

Call him a poopyhead. I double-dog-dare you.

Re:Cee-Lo Green said it best.

[nitehawk214]

I had the same thought, so I did a search before posting, and you sir took my idea before I had it! You should work at Google if you don't already, because they do that to me as well.

This is how I knew you were going to post this based on your youtube viewing history and web searches.

And I should say... shame on you, sir, shame on you.

Google is too poweful

[Anonymous Coward]

We've reached a point where no one can deny that Google has become too powerful.

Now, as a Linux user, only Google's Chrome will support Flash under Linux:

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/02/22/1323204/adobe-makes-flash-on-gnulinux-chrome-only

Every website in existence has Google analytivs, Google APIs, Google +1. It's getting out of hand. All in the name of monetization. I really, really do miss the WWW of the mid-90s for it's "innocence" and pre-Google competitiveness. No one even tries to usurp Google. It's a shame. Google becoming so big has desensitized us to lack of competition in the search realm.

This reminds me of the movie Demolition Man, where all restaurants are Taco Bell. I have gotten to the point where as of a few months ago, I use zero Google products and block everything they offer on the WWW. Their tracking is inidious. People gladly trade in their "data" and "privacy" for a free service that in the end is not free.

I think the EU is correct in pushing sites for "forget" people, despite any repercussions that might bring about. People come first, not profit.

Re:Google is too poweful

[Jeng]

So, which search provider do you trust?

Re:Google is too poweful

[Anonymous Coward]

Ixquick so far, and when I find they start logging or tracking, then I move on.

Re:Google is too poweful

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought i was common knowledge they were run by the NSA?

Never turned that on....

[gweihir]

Just tried to delete and found that I never have turned that feature on. So it seems that people concerned with privacy are not actually affected by this at all....

Of course, I use my Google account for the one project on Google Code I am involved in only, nothing else.

Way ahead of you

[WillgasM]

I never turned it on in the first place.

Re:Way ahead of you

[Anonymous Coward]

I never had Google account, so I'm way ahead of you.

wow... maybe I don't want to delete my history

[Ferante125]

I just logged into www.google.com/history and saw my browsing history back to 2007. I understand some of the privacy concerns, but I actually found it interesting to see what webpages I went to 5 years ago. For me, the ability to look back into details of the past that may have left my conscious memory recall seems to outweigh the security concerns. Also, on the www.google.com/history page you can delete individual record items so if there's something IN PARTICULAR that you want to delete... hint, hint, nudge, nudge, say no more.

Re:wow... maybe I don't want to delete my history

[hawguy]

I just logged into www.google.com/history and saw my browsing history back to 2007. I understand some of the privacy concerns, but I actually found it interesting to see what webpages I went to 5 years ago. For me, the ability to look back into details of the past that may have left my conscious memory recall seems to outweigh the security concerns. Also, on the www.google.com/history page you can delete individual record items so if there's something IN PARTICULAR that you want to delete... hint, hint, nudge, nudge, say no more.

But who has time to go through 5 years of browser history to delete all of the times they searched for "naked hot girls with donkeys"? If you think you have some particularly sensitive items in your history, the only way to make sure you get them all is to delete it all.

Re:wow... maybe I don't want to delete my history

[rubycodez]

shame on you, you pervert, most donkey fucking girls are quite modest and would never pose for a nude picture

Make A Difference Foundation

[ClioCJS]

People actually believe this makes a difference? Seems like folly to me.

So...

[virgnarus]

Remind me as to why them retaining my search history would be detrimental to me?

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCK shill ASSHOLE!

You are paid shill

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Remind me as to why them retaining my search history would be detrimental to me?

Don't worry, everyone, in the time since virgnarus's post and my reply, the frothing paranoia squad has already dealt with the non-hivemind entity and we will never have to see such heretical speech again.

Actually, in all seriousness, I agree. I really haven't been offered a real argument as to why this is inherently bad, or more specifically, worse than what is currently in place. All I'm hearing is "Google has all this data, but it's horribly disorganized through the company; now they're organizing it SWEET SHITTING DICKNIPPLES THEY'RE ORGANIZING IT?!??!??!? THIS IS FUCKING EVILLLLL!!!!!!1! MAW GET MAH GUN AH GOTS TAH SHOOT THEM GEWGUL CREEPS".

Seriously. Besides some amorphous loophole revolving around some inefficient transfer of data from one arm of the company to another being closed, how is this automatically EVILLLL? Is everyone really basing their entire internet-browsing lives around easily-plugged loopholes staying open? Is that why everyone's bent out of shape when this happens?

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

The basic concept is this:

If you search for something (like porn) Google will know. Now that they've organized the information better, they will have a better chance of acting on that information by giving you ads for things related to that search (in this example porn). Furthermore since they're doing this for everyone, the general public will know form experience that serching for things results in your ads reflecting those searches. So when someone else (like your mother) uses your computer for something, they'll see the ads that were aimed at you and can judge you based on what the ads imply about your previous searches (in this case your tastes in porn).

Re:So...

[Branciforte]

What sort of a moron doesn't use incognito mode (provided by Google Chrome) for browsing porn? Or anyother activity they don't want people to know about?

Re:So...

[worf_mo]

While you were in the kitchen fixing some sandwich your wife used your browser to order some leather boots, your daughter looked at pictures of horse whips, and your son bought handcuffs for carnival. You come back to check your gmail account and wonder why you are getting targeted S&M ads.

Re:So...

[RivenAleem]

I'd also add,

What sort of moron sees adds?

Re:So...

[RivenAleem]

Why isn't the wife making the sandwich? I'd also be quite worried if my daughter was looking a pictures of horse whips, considering she has no interest in horses.

Re:So...

[virgnarus]

I'd also like to know why handcuffs are a purchasing decision for when going to a carnival.

Re:So...

[virgnarus]

The skeletons in your closet.

A 3rd-party entity finding you have said skeletons in said closet.

Which of these is the real problem?

False Assumption

[Anonymous Coward]

But you can still delete this afterwards... I am so confused.

Of little to no consequence

[arisvega]

From their website (http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=54067):

You can remove all Web History from your Google Account at any time. While signed in to your Google Account:

Go to google.com/history.new window

Click Remove all web history.

However, as is common practice in the industry, and as outlined in the Google Privacy Policy, Google maintains a separate logs system for auditing purposes and to help us improve the quality of our services for users.

(emphasis mine)

Re:Of little to no consequence

[careysub]

It is as I thought. All this means that YOU can't make use of your web history, Google still has it and can do with it as it pleases. Same as with Facebook account "deletions".

Re:Of little to no consequence

[Anonymous Coward]

I pulled it up to delete it, and actually found it pretty fascinating to browse through years of searching history, and see where my mind was. Plus, plenty of hot wanking material from years gone by. :D

I decided to leave it. It's not like my search habits are suddenly going to change, anyway.

deleted last year

[nonicknameavailable]

i deleted everything and disabled it so i get this "Your search history is currently empty."

Proxies

[bigbangnet]

For all the paranoid (me included sometimes), use a free web proxies. Of course with a free one you wont go really fast but since your going to use it for searching on google, their's no need for 10gb bandwith anyways. That should be able to fix the privacy problem once and for all.

End of the world nigh?

[Theleton]

What is the basis for believing this option will disappear once Google consolidates its privacy policies? TFA says that on March 1, "after all your odd searches, secret obsessions and kinky lunch reading is ensconced inside a special database, you won't be able to get to the data any more." This claim appears completely unfounded.

Clickety pops!

[rizole]

Go to Google History and follow the instructions.

Re:Clickety pops!

[stillnotelf]

Unfortunately, if you already had it turned off, (as I apparently did), the "instructions" instead show you how to turn it _on_ rather than _off_. So - don't follow the instructions too automatically...

Thanks slashdot!

[grahamsaa]

Looks like you slashdotted the EFF. Site is down.

Re:Thanks slashdot!

[jcreus]

Slashdot, you did it again! You're grounded!

Re:Thanks slashdot!

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like you slashdotted the EFF. Site is down.

Blame the mucus.

Re:Thanks slashdot!

[rrohbeck]

It's back up now.

Wondering the same thing myself

[Anonymous Coward]

Deleted my + account anyhow. It's not related, but I don't use, and it made me feel like I did something

No Google account, but what ELSE have I had?

[Fortran IV]

I've read a dozen different articles about this, and I still can't tell: If I have a YouTube account but I've never had a "Google account," does this affect me at all?

One article mentioned "57 services" run by Google, but nobody's listed them. How do I know that I don't have an account at a site (like YouTube) Google owns but doesn't explicitly brand? I'd practically forgotten that YouTube was Google's...

Re:No Google account, but what ELSE have I had?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well.. if you really just have a Youtube account (didn't they force link those to Google accounts if you actually signed in sometime back?) then Google web history doesn't affect you. Because... Youtube is not Google Search.

But if you have a YT account and it is linked to a Google account as I thought was the current method, then you do have a Google account and it may have data in it.

Re:No Google account, but what ELSE have I had?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would appear so. I logged into youtube and then went over to google's history page and saw I was signed-in. I was then able to delete the history

Re:No Google account, but what ELSE have I had?

[KhabaLox]

Youtube is not Google Search.

Now, granted I'm not a search engine code monkey, but I assumed that when I typed in a search query on YouTube, it basically fed "<query> site:youtube.com" to the Google search engine. Seems trivial (and desirable from Google's perspective) to link that history to your YouTube account.

Re:No Google account, but what ELSE have I had?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe all youtube acounts have to be connected to a google account now adays. This change was forced upon me awhile back. When was the last time you logged into your youtube account?

Re:No Google account, but what ELSE have I had?

[Black Parrot]

More confusion here...

I get e-mail from one google group that I joined long ago, and occasional invites to edit a google doc, but when I try to log in with the relevant e-mail address, it says it can't find a matching account. Is it letting me do those things without an account?

Will google searches work if I forbid cookies unto them?

WTF is this kind of privacy-spilling even legal?

Will widespread complaints make them roll it back, like BoA's ATM card fee?

Re:No Google account, but what ELSE have I had?

[Tim C]

Potentially it's even more confusing than that - for example, I use Virgin Media as my ISP. While I never use it, I get a free web-based email account with them. I completely forgot until I happened to sign into it the other day but some time ago they switched providers to Google.

I wonder how many people have Google accounts without realising it.

remove all Web History

[eaman]

"remove all Web History" will just remover _your_ chance to read your own web hystory.
OFC google will keep it and will continue to update it in order to "improve the service" or whatever they call it today.

You should disable JS for google, clean your cookies, refuse cookies, use a proxy. Or just get in the mood to use an other search engine.

Re:remove all Web History

[tlhIngan]

You should disable JS for google, clean your cookies, refuse cookies, use a proxy. Or just get in the mood to use an other search engine.

Funny thing - because of NoScript, many websites break if you disallow google-analytics from running scripts - these sites purposely redirect through Google Analytics in order to track you. It's so bad that NoScript has surrogate scripts that run in place of Google's.

And there's others - I've seen websites break because they load through doubleclick (the main content doesn't show unless doubleclick (a Google company) is enabled).

Finally, if Google vanished completely off the 'net, the whole Internet would literally break - they're deeply embedded in everything and host a surprisingly large amount of essential pieces for websites.

Even if you Bing, Hotmail, etc., you're bound to hit something owned by Google within a few clicks.

And smartphones like iOS and Android have ads provided by AdMob, owned by Google.

Doesn't do much

[Anonymous Coward]

This only deletes the viewable version of your web history.

Sure you as an end user cannot view the history, but if you google won't be using that data regardless I have a bridge to sell you.

No. Today is still Feb. 22.

[tomzyk]

You obviously haven't read the fine-print in their new agreement. One of the updates is that GoogleCalendar is changing. Months always start on Thursdays from now on. And there will be 14 months per year. Google's moon-base is still working on speeding up the moon's revolution, but it should be ready [out of Beta] by the end of 2012.

Re:No. Today is still Feb. 22.

[The Wild Norseman]

You obviously haven't read the fine-print in their new agreement. One of the updates is that GoogleCalendar is changing. Months always start on Thursdays from now on. And there will be 14 months per year. Google's moon-base is still working on speeding up the moon's revolution, but it should be ready [out of Beta] by the end of 2012.

Oh crap! That was yesterday!

Re:No. Today is still Feb. 22.

[Anonymous Coward]

mayhap the moonbase will be successfull in its efforts dec 21, 2012? so all this 2012 stuff is really leakage from the alternative universe where space 1999 comes true 13 (oooh) years late, and is brought on by a company founded by people who watched the show when they were 2 years old and said "thats what i want to do!". it all makes sense now. bring me my nikes, im going to bed now.

Re:No. Today is still Feb. 22.

[Krigl]

You must mean Moon Revolutions.

In Soviet Russia

[Roachie]

YOU can forget about Google!

shenanigans!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Google must of posted this /. article to get the instructions offline, darn it, eff is slashdotted.

Stupid question but if you don't have the service

[pkinetics]

... will they automatically enable it?

You can delete the service through here, which means you have no history for them to even have.

https://www.google.com/accounts/DeleteService?service=hist

This actually makes me REAL HAPPY

[Anonymous Coward]

I just cleared my search history, so that now when Google makes it unremovable ALL my ads will have something to do with MLP (which is about the only stuff I search for anymore).

Getting tricky

[jones_supa]

Okay, this web history thing was easy to check. But day by day it seems I have more and more of this kind of privacy stuff to take care of. Some terms have once again changed, my data is being mined in new ways, hey check your new privacy settings or be sorry. If I actually took throughly care of all this, it would soon become a mini job...

March 1st

[Anonymous Coward]

is when the changeover hits. Not today, not tomorrow.

Steven

thanks

[Tom]

Today I know why I still have /. in my dailys.

the helpful folks at EFF have posted some simple instructions showing how to delete your web history at Google.

That is exactly what I was looking for. Now if only someone could post a mirror, I'd be a happy camper.

Check Again

[swonkdog]

about a year ago when i closed my google account(s). same with facebook, although if their shadow-profiling is any indication of 'how its done' then you can expect google to start silently tracking the same inferential data about you as a person instead..

either may have started as amicable services, but both have rapidly evolved into a flagrant, unapologetic breeches of privacy.

My previous employer required me to have a Google account (manager would publish the schedule on Google Docs). I left the job, closed the account and once closed tried to log back in. Google gave me a message to the effect that the name and password don't match / that there is no account so I go on with my life. Today I see that I need to tell Google to delete my history and decide to try to log in using my old username and password. Surprise! Google lets me log into an account that I definitely closed a year ago. Don't be evil my ass.

Re:Check Again

[ToddInSF]

Wow, thanks for this, that is very alarming.

But seriously, anyone that actually believed Google's "Do No Evil" PR bullshit was falling for PR engineered self delusion.

I've always found it disturbing all the people that feel for THAT crap early on who really should have known better. Looking back, it's interesting to see who was warning everybody from the very begging that it was BS, and who was not.

Trust is earned, but some people think it can be gained or restored by buying it, or giving you pretty baubles "for free".

Stored ever, stored forever

[hantarto]

I am think that if Google am store my search history at one point in time, they are have forever. I am delete it now, but if Google go back to different point in time to when they are still have history on me, they can retrieve it. Is naive to thinking that organization so big as Google are not have ability to move back and forth on four dimensional axis; surely if anybody have this ability it are them.

Once again Google screws over paying customers

[SuperKendall]

When Google launched Google+, I could not create a G+ account because - I was stupid enough to give Google money for Google Apps for my company - thus my Google account was ineligible to be used by G+.

Now comes this history thing. I go to Google, but because I am stupid enough to pay Google money for Google Apps for my company, I cannot access "history" to remove it or do anything else.

Google knew who I was already so it's not like my searches are not being tracked. I guess they figure the money I pay them is an implicit OK to savage my data as they will.

Anyone have a good mail provider I can get SMTP access with? I really want to drop Google and that's really the only reason I subscribe to Google Apps.

I would drop them for search too but I'm not a madman. Nothing else really compares yet, not even Bing...

Re:Once again Google screws over paying customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Fastmail eats Gmail's lunch and then some. Paid account lets you do anything conceivable with email: IMAP, POP, SMTP, encrypted email, email aliases, webmail gives you a notepad, some web storage... just cannot beat Fastmail. Been using them for years and no one else.

Re:Once again Google screws over paying customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure your apps domain has web-history enabled? On my apps-domain I can access and change the history.

Re:Once again Google screws over paying customers

[gumpish]

From fastmail.fm:

Copyright 1999-2012 Opera Software Australia Pty Ltd and related entities

Australia? No thanks. Not exactly the bastion of privacy laws...

Re:Once again Google screws over paying customers

[SuperKendall]

Thanks for the heads up, I'll try again - using the URL suggested in the article (google.com/history) did not work.

Re:Once again Google screws over paying customers

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

Australia? No thanks. Not exactly the bastion of privacy laws...

In US jurisdiction: Tuffmail or LuxSci
In Europe: euMX

Google Web History

[David_Hart]

Maybe I joined Google later than others, but the first thing that I did when I joined Google was turn Web History off so, nothing for me to delete.

However, I agree with other posters that it's unlikely that this would make a difference. I am sure that through a combination of tracking cookies, stored backups, etc. my web history could be recovered with enough effort and resources.

Doesn't work for personal domains

[phorm]

This service is not available

Web History is not available for phormix.com. Learn more about Google products you can use with USERNAME@DOMAIN.COM

Legality in your country?

[dutchwhizzman]

What if you live in a country that has actual privacy laws? What if that country states that an IP address is because of legal obligations of ISPs, always relatable to a natural person or company? What if that country explicitly states an IP address is personal data? What if that country has laws that prohibit companies to harvest private data without explicit permission from the owner?

I'd say that this makes Googles new policy illegal and they have to leave that country and stop providing services or track anyone from that country, or adjust their policy and comply. I wonder what is going to happen once the new policy is in place, because that country exists and people have a tendency to go to court over stuff like this.

Odd that I did this already today

[TheyTookOurJobs]

It's kind of weird that I did this this morning just because I didn't want my wife coming onto my PC and seeing all of the porn searches by hitting a letter on google search.

Re:Odd that I did this already today

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're lucky enough to have a wife that comes onto your PC why can't you have a webcam set up for the rest of us?

On your seperate note

[PuZZleDucK]

Hey Tharsman, try: https://www.google.com/history/lookup?q=&output=rss&num=100 where you can replace "num=100" with "num=100000" or whatever... didn't test for upper limit, but I will later :D (info from http://www.dataliberation.org.../ if this is a dictatorship, it could be worse)

Future?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Gmail account and not a Google account. I let my YouTube account die rather than switch.

But I'm looking ahead and thinking I may be forced to get a Google account at some time, perhaps like some are forced to get Facebook accounts.

Should I get a Google account today and use the EFF's advice now? Is that better than getting a Google account later?

Anyone know? Or does the EFF have some linked advice I can't find yet?

Re:Future?

[arekq]

I believe you can goto Account Settings immediately after you signed up the account, and opt-out of things you don't use like web history, google+...
(Just out of my memory. I haven't check if there's any changes.)

Bye by Google search, Hello Yandex.com

[Anonymous Coward]

This is it. Today I abandon Google-search the same way as I left Altavista in 1999 and HotBot before it.

Moving to what? Well, after few minutes of googling I found Yandex, tested it with a non-obvious query "how to swap two numbers" and found the results being enough. Bye bye Google Hello Yandex

Re:Bye by Google search, Hello Yandex.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Back to bonzi for me.

Upper limit for RSS feed

[detlefvonberg]

I just copied about five years of web history, using the RSS feed method above, into 8 loooong web pages. The upper limit per page varies between something like 800-1000 entries; it took trial and error for me to figure out how to get all my history to display on successive pages, with minimal overlap. There didn't seem to be any magic number of entries per page; it seems to depend on the character length of the addresses or something.

After the first page (which starts at entry 0):

https://www.google.com/history/lookup?q=&output=rss&num=1000

just start from increasing entry numbers, like:

https://www.google.com/history/lookup?q=&output=rss&num=1000&start=960

Re:Upper limit for RSS feed

[Tharsman]

darn... there has to be an easier way to expor this stuff accurately (with date and other fields that are shown in the /history page)

Google likes to brag about your ability to take your data out of Google, where is that tool for web history!?

Re:Upper limit for RSS feed

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't you have all those sites in your browser history?

Re:Upper limit for RSS feed

[ynp7]

Perhaps if you've only used one web browser on one computer since 2006. Otherwise, probably not.

It's awesome to live in a good country :)

[LostMyBeaver]

I left the states 14 years ago, and though I go back to visit occasionally, I'm not even in an ACTA nation! You have to love countries like Norway. While we have endless laws prohibiting just about anything, the 32 policemen in the country just can bother with anything less important than murder. Oh... when annual budget arrives for them, they rush out and arrest everyone they can as fast as they can. So, figure like 30 arrests in one night. The rest of the time, they hang out in down town Oslo making sure that the hookers are confined to the first place anyone sees when they visit Norway, kinda like a welcome mat. I think they take turns with who gets to keep the national theater area safe which is where all the rich girls in expensive dresses that barely cover their privates go to get munchies after getting plastered at night.

I love this place. The best part is, even if the most dishonest man were to stand on a building here screaming at the top of his lungs speaking his mind, it wouldn't matter. People here are mature enough to listen to what interests them and intelligent enough to ignore the nonsense for the most part.

Of course your hidden reference to what most people refer to as the current Orwellian state is nicely placed. Of course, I'm not quite sure that we're at the point where the technology is ready for the thought police concept. Maybe the search result police is the next best thing.

Re:It's awesome to live in a good country :)

[Sigg3.net]

Can't confirm it from the loo, but I think Downtown Oslo is the most surveillanced spot in any city on earth.

Thing is, I don't think the police are monitoring. So who are?

Alternative Searches

[Anonymous Coward]

So from tomorrow on out, I'm using duckduckgo.com for my NSFW searches.

Re:Alternative Searches

[wannabgeek]

Try it for your regular searches too. It's not bad, and it's a way of supporting them. Why do you want to support Google when you don't like what they are doing, especially if there is another option available?

Re:Alternative Searches

[Anonymous Coward]

DDG is great, they also have a secure link as well httpS://www.DuckDuckGo.com

There is also bunches of other great search engines as well, its just ashame the cule went under, they where one of the last good competitors that had a large database compared to googles :-/

Track Me Not for Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/trackmenot/

Re:Track Me Not for Firefox

[Black Parrot]

Now that is funny.

Hope it doesn't get me busted for DOSing Teh Google.

QQ

[Branciforte]

If you want Google to treat every service like a separate account, then create a separate account for every service. And learn to use incognito mode for porn and bomb-making and all the other stuff you don't want anyone to know about.

And for god's sake, stop whining about this, you fucking paranoid losers.

Some incredibly useful info and FULL export tool !

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a good discussion and great info / tool here that i think everyone should look at.
There is a javascript bookmarklet here that is run entirely locally that can export all of the web history associated with a google account.

http://geeklad.com/updated-script-to-download-google-history

The original story was posted here a few days ago by the way.

http://geeklad.com/download-google-history

Take a look at my input in the comments as well which also has some other useful tricks.

ps: Also , don't forget about google takeout for google's other services located here https://www.google.com/takeout/

GOOD LUCK!

No such button

[frisket]

Except that you can't. When I go to the "Remove all history" page there is no such button as illustrated on the EFF instructions.

Why?

[Snaller]

Why would you want to do this?

Not only will you be "bound" by the same license agreement as before, they just merge them all together, Google will still track you, you just won't be able to see it anymore?

So what does it matter?

My provocative and reactionary web history....

[ElVee]

I wanted to see for myself what government agents or advertisers would find when they went sifting through my web history, so I took a close a look through several years of my own web history.

I have scientifically determined that I am an amazingly dull person. I bore myself to tears. I'd rather read the phone book than go through my own web history again.

Re: some upper limit test results

[Anonymous Coward]

I've tried some num values, and anything over 100,000 - even 100,001 - seems to revert to the default 100 results.

What if your account is is Google Apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are using google to manage your corporate email, going to google.com/history gives:

"This service is not available
Web History is not available for ---.com"

Does that mean they aren't tracking, or just that I can't clear it?

I'm going one step further

[atomicxblue]

I'm going to migrate back to Firefox and stop using Chrome, as well as stop using google for the search engine.