Holy shit. I just cleared mine. my business account had data going back to 2008. and my person account not only had years of data, but also my web searches in Safari on my iphone.
Glad i had the chance to delete it before the new privacy policy change. but is it “REALLY” deleted or just hidden from my view???
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
Sure they kept all the info i wont bother to delete mine, sure some of my searches look pretty fucked up too lol but not much can be done.
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
Thanks for the tip! I did mine now.
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
I did this a while ago.
It is actually pretty concerning. I’m always wary of how large corporations handle data. They tend to have far too many hands in the process and that leads to theft of data for nefarious purposes.
Then of course you have government. People quickly forget Human history.
If you imagine a massive room, with rows and rows of filing cabinets, and imagine there’s a file in there with your photo, your address, your political views, the books you took out of the library, the people you meet for coffee, the last 100 things you purchased, the subjects you’re interested in…
We look at things like that from the Nazis and Soviets and rightly think it’s terrifying.
Now imagine all those filing cabinets are just a few servers, with digital files containing your photo, your email addresses, your search history, the sites you’re a member of, the people you communicate with… All the information is still there, it’s just in a different form, easily searchable and cross-referenced by whoever would benefit from knowing.
And this is no longer a dangerous government either, it’s a corporation, with little oversight, no real legal framework with any teeth, and no one to answer to.
Why do we view one as scary and wrong, but the other as perfectly fine?
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
It really did surprise me as well. I had no idea they saved all my searches that I’ve done.
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
[QUOTE=conran;111067]I did this a while ago.
It is actually pretty concerning. I’m always wary of how large corporations handle data. They tend to have far too many hands in the process and that leads to theft of data for nefarious purposes.
Then of course you have government. People quickly forget Human history.
If you imagine a massive room, with rows and rows of filing cabinets, and imagine there’s a file in there with your photo, your address, your political views, the books you took out of the library, the people you meet for coffee, the last 100 things you purchased, the subjects you’re interested in…
We look at things like that from the Nazis and Soviets and rightly think it’s terrifying.
Now imagine all those filing cabinets are just a few servers, with digital files containing your photo, your email addresses, your search history, the sites you’re a member of, the people you communicate with… All the information is still there, it’s just in a different form, easily searchable and cross-referenced by whoever would benefit from knowing.
And this is no longer a dangerous government either, it’s a corporation, with little oversight, no real legal framework with any teeth, and no one to answer to.
Why do we view one as scary and wrong, but the other as perfectly fine?[/QUOTE]
I surf from cute kitten websites to shock blogs.
I buy a little pink dress and a leather jockstrap at the same time.
I order Mozart and Black Sabbath albums at the same time.
I google “abortion for men” and “how to kill Paris Hilton’s Chiwawa” every day
I drink coffee with muslim extremists and with the kids from the local christian theater group.
I move once a year and dye my hair every month.
All this to annoy Google and make that one employee think: “What kind of person is this?”
On a serious note, it is kind of scary, but I don’t think you can really be anonymous anymore. With big companies taking over the smaller companies, their knowledge is only going to be bigger in the future.
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
I don’t know how it is everyone else seems to have had this turned on. Mine wasn’t. Then again Google doesn’t really scare me. The most they’ve done in the probably five years since I got google-ized is give me some really bizarre ads. The flipside is everything they do just works and makes life easier. And no, it’s insanity to think anything you do online is really anonymous and it isn’t Google you should be scared of knowing what you do. If anything Google and Twitter both have resisted government intrusions.
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
Thanks for that link! Between google and youtube I must have about a dozen accouts. I already checked one and it looks like web history was never turned on. Guess I know what I’ll be doing on Leap Day now! Then again, I don’t think there’s anything bad in my past web history and I don’t see how my surfing habits will change because of this.
Does anyone know if they only collect data while you’re logged into a Google account, or is it all the time? If it happens while you’re not logged in, which account do they use if you have several?
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
If you’re in Chrome it syncs everything. But none of that seems to be in the ‘History’ link. Not sure what the fuss is, or how my web browsing history helps Google advertise to me unless they suddenly get Bieber clones to do lapdances lol. None of my browsing history is in the history link but Chrome itself knows everything which if anything just makes it that much more painless considering my computer blew up two weeks ago and all I had to do was install Chrome to get most everything back. Just comes down to if you semi-trust Google and I do to an extent. I’d be more worried about IE and what it tracks, or Safari. Apple is a way scarier company to put faith in, and Microsoft well that’s kinda like giving a kid a machine gun. They’re all doing the same thing just Google is being open about it. Which is very much a pattern, Google is very open about its business and somehow that makes people freak, I’m way more concerned about the companies that aren’t.
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
You got that right.
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
The new Google privacy policy appear to violate the EU data protection laws and will be further investigated.
The French data protection bureau CNIL has requested Google to extend the implementation of the new privacy policy (letter in PDF)
Google’s response to CNIL (letter in Google docs)
I am interested to see how the battle between governments and a corporation will continue.
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
They are getting raked over the coals as well here:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/02/24/technology-google-stoddart-privacy.html
Don’t mess with Jennifer. she brought Facebook to their knees.
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
I never enabled web history. But they sure want me to click the button to start it!
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
[QUOTE=gumdrop;111120]They are getting raked over the coals as well here:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/02/24/technology-google-stoddart-privacy.html
Don’t mess with Jennifer. she brought Facebook to their knees.[/QUOTE]
I love how they bring up the fact that they “accidentally” collected information from peoples wireless networks.
Exactly how does a corporation “accidentally” gather data, then “accidentally” allow the capacity to store said data too?
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
Oh yes that was a good one alright.
http://www.newswire.ca/fr/story/656409/google-contravened-canadian-privacy-law-investigation-finds
“This incident was the result of a careless error - one that could easily have been avoided,” says Commissioner Stoddart.
[QUOTE=conran;111138]I love how they bring up the fact that they “accidentally” collected information from peoples wireless networks.
Exactly how does a corporation “accidentally” gather data, then “accidentally” allow the capacity to store said data too?[/QUOTE]
Re: How to delete your Google Browsing History before new policy
Same with me OldSchool. I never actually enabled anything, so there is nothing really to erase.