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I'm confused. What does this actually mean? "You can delete information from Web History using the remove feature, and it will be removed from the service. How

by rd108 15y ago

I'm confused. What does this actually mean? "You can delete information from Web History using the remove feature, and it will be removed from the service. 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." So.... why would I delete this information if Google still keeps it elsewhere? Do I just have no ability to control what data Google collects on me, even if I agree to stop using its services?

rd108 15y ago
Not that I don't trust Google with my personal data, of course.... ;)
greyman 15y ago
I see two reasons why one might want to do it: 1) If someone breaks into your account, that person can steal all your search history. This is why I disabled search history recording a long time ago. 2) It was uncovered that Google passess some of its data about users to third parties, especially ads agencies. Now, with the new policy, you can't be sure that search data leakage will not occur. Moreover, ads agencies use mechanisms like cookie syncing to share user data between themselves.
- tucson 15y ago
  "It was uncovered that Google passess some of its data about users to third parties, especially ads agencies." Can you provide a source to back this statement? (I am not challenging you, just interested to learn about this)
Maxious 15y ago
I think it's just trying to tell you this isn't a silver bullet for get-me-out-of-google, there are other systems that keep records of when you login/do things or other systems that log searches but don't identify them to you. You just opt out of this specific system.
magicalist 15y ago
without going back to read the privacy policy again, I believe a big difference is that normal search logs are anonymized after a certain amount of time, whereas search history is kept as long as it's enabled, I assume. Sometimes I get the feeling in all the discussions around google's new privacy policy that I'm one of the few people around here that bothered to actually read it :)

by rd108 15y ago

rd108 15y ago

Not that I don't trust Google with my personal data, of course.... ;)

greyman 15y ago

I see two reasons why one might want to do it: 1) If someone breaks into your account, that person can steal all your search history. This is why I disabled search history recording a long time ago. 2) It was uncovered that Google passess some of its data about users to third parties, especially ads agencies. Now, with the new policy, you can't be sure that search data leakage will not occur. Moreover, ads agencies use mechanisms like cookie syncing to share user data between themselves.

tucson 15y ago
"It was uncovered that Google passess some of its data about users to third parties, especially ads agencies." Can you provide a source to back this statement? (I am not challenging you, just interested to learn about this)

Maxious 15y ago

I think it's just trying to tell you this isn't a silver bullet for get-me-out-of-google, there are other systems that keep records of when you login/do things or other systems that log searches but don't identify them to you. You just opt out of this specific system.

magicalist 15y ago

without going back to read the privacy policy again, I believe a big difference is that normal search logs are anonymized after a certain amount of time, whereas search history is kept as long as it's enabled, I assume. Sometimes I get the feeling in all the discussions around google's new privacy policy that I'm one of the few people around here that bothered to actually read it :)