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Google now lets you password-protect the page that shows all your searches
- Proven 5y agoCool, but to me it's a liability, not an asset. Appreciate the feature but I don't want Google to have anything to do with my searches, password-protected or otherwise.
- capableweb 5y ago> Appreciate the feature but I don't want Google to have anything to do with my searches, password-protected or otherwise. That's actually very easy to fix, don't use Google for your searches. Otherwise, obviously, the property you're using to do X with, will be able to see that you're doing X, otherwise it wouldn't work in the first place. Not sure what you're arguing for/against here really.
- tantalor 5y agoGood news: Under "Activity controls," click Manage your activity controls. Turn off the activity you don’t want to save. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/7028918 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/7028918
- capableweb 5y agoProven is explicitly saying "I don't want Google to have anything to do with my searches", which your "fix" won't actually achieve. Google will still receive the search query and most likely store the terms you used together with more metadata. Only thing that toggle does is disassociate it from your user.
- hansel_der 5y agos/disassociate/hide/ fixed that for you
- throwaway3699 5y agoThen what's your point? Just don't use Google or turn search history off.
- ignoramous 5y agoThis xkcd is apt: https://xkcd.com/463/ https://xkcd.com/463/
- Raed667 5y agoI was thinking the same, like why weren't they checking it was actually me before this.
- irjustin 5y agoThis is for devices already logged in. So if your phone is unlocked or your browser open.
- im3w1l 5y agoIf you are logged in on a device, then somoene can see all your emails. Is the history of all your searches more sensitive than your emails? Perhaps, but it's not 100% obvious where to draw the line. The main determinant is probably that people check their history legitimately so rarely that re-auth is a small burden.
- c8g 5y agoWhat is wrong with this? Someone who has access to your computer can already do ctrl+H on your computer. Google just added extra verification for myactivity.
- rjzzleep 5y agoA lot of people actually clean their history every now and then.
- bidirectional 5y agoAnd Google provides auto-deletion of search history.
- capableweb 5y ago
- agumonkey 5y agoI have a feeling that in the near future, newborns will receive an id card and a password form to secure their data
- amelius 5y agoIs that good or bad?
- agumonkey 5y agoyes -- the universe
- prepend 5y agoAt birth, it will be common to post a “hello world, here’s my public key” as a Bitcoin blockchain message. In the long run, may be the cheapest way to have it be archived.
- oauea 5y agoPersonally I wasn't capable of posting such a message until quite a few years after my birth.
- goldenkey 5y agoOh, so you're one of "those people." My wife and I knew a couple who chose to natural birth their child. Needless to say, they are besides themselves with grief. Maybe you're different. Best of luck. /s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- RandallBrown 5y agoThis (well something like it) is a major plot point in Neal Stephenson's newest book Fall, Or Dodge In Hell.
- tantalor 5y agoIt doesn't really help if you have auto-fill enabled for your password. It should do that "no, you need to actually type your password" thing.
- capableweb 5y ago> It doesn't really help if you have auto-fill enabled for your password. If you autofill your passwords via the browser, you probably don't think very much about privacy in the first place and password-protect the history page won't change much. > It should do that "no, you need to actually type your password" thing. Yeah, that'd be awesome for us who use password managers and set our passwords to be at least 32 characters long with special characters. Please developers, never ever disable pasting passwords, it worsens security.
- unionpivo 5y agoI know that HN doesn't like +1 posts, but soo much this. Even worse is if you make me type them on a phone[1], I am actively hating you. As in I am actively going to recommend we switch from whatever products you support. [1] Because you purposefully broke web app so you can drive your app usage.
- mathstuf 5y agoOn Android, I've used KeePassDroid which had an alternate keyboard for its "autofill" support. I never had issues with that. There's the related behavior where autofill doesn't clear the "something happened" check, so you have to add a character and remove it again to tickle the "missing field" JS checks into recognizing you typed something in.
- StavrosK 5y ago> If you autofill your passwords via the browser, you probably don't think very much about privacy What's wrong with auto-filling passwords?
- 5y ago
- clydethefrog 5y agoInteresting thing I noticed is that Google communicates with their "dark pattern" they rather not have you enable this — the Save button is greyed out and the Cancel button is solid and blue for a change.
- tomcharles 5y agoThe save button is only grayed (disabled) if you haven't changed the value
- throwaway1959 5y agoJust to make sure: this protects you from your co-worker/spouse looking at your search history at your desk/device. The advertisers and corporations can freely purchase your search history from Google. It does not seem like a significant step towards privacy to me.
- viro 5y agoDo you know the difference between targeting based on data and having the data? I can show you an AD based on ur search I can't buy ur search history and see you looked up hentai.
- throwaway1959 5y agoMaybe I am too cynical, but I think in Google's case, the difference between targeting based on data and having the data will be several extra zeros in their price point.
- viro 5y agoThe only real way google makes money is by selling ADs. The only reason they are sooo good at it, is because of the amount of infomation they have about you and me. If they willy nilly sell that information to entities that directly devalues that data. Now ask your self why would google devalue their core competitive advantage.
- Spivak 5y agoYes and people’s whole careers are built on maintaining that fiction that they’re meaningfully different. We sent you this ad because we know you like hentai and “we asked Google to look through their data and show ads to hentai watchers” is a distinction without a difference when it’s equally uncomfortable that Google is looking at this information as it would be for Google’s clients.
- viro 5y agoYou know the "we" is google right?! the company provides google an AD and how they want to target it. Then google serves that AD
- grouphugs 5y agothat doesn't help anyone when google just gives away the data or sells it
- ram_rar 5y agoI have turned off web, location and youtube history in google. No historic data, no password, no creepy ads. Less is more!!
- hnnnnnnng 5y agoThey still collect and save all of that information. It's just not displayed to you ;)
- meowfly 5y agoI'd be interested in the amount of truth behind this. It it established Google keeps "shadow" behavioral data that isn't accessible to users? I'm sure they have some in other systems to some degree (i.e logging). I just did a takeout for my location history (which I keep off) and it was empty.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lupire 5y agoDo you have any evidence besides "well it's technically possible, and they might be violating GDPR and lying in their product documentation"?
- lupire 5y agoIt's interesting to see this change because in the last Google Chrome team refused to password protect the passwords database because they believed physical access was Game Over anyway. But this change isn't much different from the other sensitive pages that demand re-authentication.