Comments on: Google Web History is taking over my life

Google has been tracking our searches for a while, but now they're letting us see them with their new Google Web History search.

[lisaamorao]

Disturbing

I'm not that naive to really believe that no one is watching what I do online, but being able to see my search history is just creepy.

On your post you mentioned:
"The good news is that users can opt-out of Google's Web History program, along with the capability to delete any item that's been archived. The bad news is that if you have a Google account, all your search activity has been tracked since last week."

I just tried out the service and I have archived information from July of 2006.

Even creepier, the searches are time-stamped.

I've got a weird feeling in my stomach.

[bobmikejoe]

It goes back just a little bit.

My records show the first date they have me searching as April 20, 2005.

[teknico.net]

Don't login, and use CookieSafe

Google is getting to know too much about us.

I don't use Google Mail, nor any other Google service that keeps my stuff on their servers, so I don't need to be logged into my Google account most of the time.

I also use the CookieSafe Firefox extension to renew the Google Search cookie each time I restart the browser. One could actually do without the cookie, but it's needed to set search preferences, and it's a pain resetting them all the time.

Furthermore, my Internet connection has a dynamic IP address, and I change it frequently.

In this way, Google has no way (that I know of) of tracking my searches from one browsing session to the next.

[caldwdo]

Google is organizing too much informtion

I appreciate the tip about the web history. I use Gmail and a lot of their services. But I don't need a tally sheet kept on my Internet activities. Too much a "Big Brother" 1984 situation. www.dougcaldwell.net

[lloydg]

Thank you for letting me know!!

I read your article about Google tracking my web browsing history. Using the information from the article I checked to find that Google had information on every web site I browsed back to 2005. This is really disturbing that they have been collecting this history. I was able to turn this "helpful feature" off thanks to your article. I'm very annoyed and feel violated by my favorite web search engine. Hmmmph. This belongs on 60 minutes. Really appreciate your research on this.

[Joe Karnis]

turning off web search history

how do you turn this feature off ?

joe karnis

[thelastsamurai]

If you want your web history is limited to searche

If you want your web history is limited to searches, you must first disable PageRank: Click "Settings" on your Toolbar, select "Options" and then click the "More" tab. Uncheck the "PageRank and Page Info" checkbox.
This is just too creepy... =_=|||
Am I being spyed online?

[llbbl]

"Google quietly rolled out last week"

I have been using Google Web History for 1-2 years now, so this statement is not accurate!

[mattumanu]

Signed up automatically

Even after I deleted this service from my account 2 weeks ago, it was automatically added back in when I signed up for a gmail account. Google is evil, that's all there is too it.