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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."
Gots no Google account, so does that mean they dont track me or that I cant erase the tracking data?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I'm confused. The new policy goes into effect March 1 and today is the last day to erase the old?
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
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.
If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up. - Comedian Mitch Hedberg R.I.P. 03/30/68-2/24/05
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.)
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.
Good people go to bed earlier.
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
We're all adults here..
You must be new here.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Remind me as to why them retaining my search history would be detrimental to me?
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.
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.
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)
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Looks like you slashdotted the EFF. Site is down.
Facts have a liberal bias.
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...
I figure by 2030 or so my 6-digit UID will be something to brag about.
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.
Karma: NaN
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.