The voluntary part is only about whether you want to see your web history or not. Search history is already stored, whether you wanted it or not.
On first login you'll see all the past search queries you made starting from some 2-3 years back. However, after signing up, you can clear your entire search history or selectively delete certain queries.
And with Google toolbar installed, you can have it track not only search queries but also all the web pages you'll ever visit.
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Now isn't that kind of bullish? I mean voluntary is supposed to imply opt-in to the service, not opt-out. I have paused mine too.
The voluntary part is only about whether you want to see your web history or not. Search history is already stored, whether you wanted it or not.
On first login you'll see all the past search queries you made starting from some 2-3 years back.
However, after signing up, you can clear your entire search history or selectively delete certain queries.
And with Google toolbar installed, you can have it track not only search queries but also all the web pages you'll ever visit.