It's not something new that Google saves all your searches, you can even actually see all your past searches here if you are signed in.

If you want to remove your past search history that is saved by Google, just click on the link bellow, sign in and select "delete all" (text link), also click the "Turn off" button to "disable" further web history recording:

Clicky

11 years ago*

Comment has been collapsed.

Why would i want that?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Perhaps in order to protect your privacy, also after a while your searches become "localized" and all past searches affect any present searches in a bad way.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

You don't want that. You want big corporations to know everything about you. Attaboy.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Bahahahahaha I love the beautiful irony, Question.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

and your picture is The Question.....

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

For porn websites just use incognito tab bro... kkkkkk

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Watching porn has psychological and physiological consequences, i do not recommend it.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

oh, it has physiological consequences alright.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Haaa! :P

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Going out for a walk also has psychological and physiological consequences.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

true

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I don't recommend walks either

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

but that's only reason for someone be so concerned in delete the search history no?? kkkk

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

no

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

other reason could include using a public computer or planning surprises.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

All this problems could be solved using incognito tab.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

yes, i'm just saying those are other reasons why people would delete search history

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

indeed

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Well, at least you warned them. I don't think it did anything to dissuade them, though.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

lol

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Damn, I was about to follow your instructions, but I got distracted by all that old porn I was looking at a year ago.

Edit: In retrospect, I regret making a porn joke. But I will wear my shame proudly and not delete it.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Thanks for the tip - this could be quite nostalgic :)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

:)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Eh, it's already turned off for me. I was hoped I could be able to saw my past searches for nostalgic purposes.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Yeah mine was already off to

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Same haha, past me outsmarted present me.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

At first I was like "why would I even care", then "hey, I wander what they may have stored in there" just to see I already had it disabled. At least I don't need to worry about getting weird search results (after all disturbing/creepy/gross links some of my "friends" tend to share)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Oh boy, I better delete that shit q_q

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Gotta delete all those pony porn, huh?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Your comment pwned me :D

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Oh my.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

indeedy

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Because I use Incognito, this wasn't very interesting.

But finding gems like "how to open a can of ravioli", "spongebob essay", and "how high do you even have to be to do something like that" was worth it.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

NSA already knows I google shady shit, no point now.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

+1

damage is done, data has been copied to other servers and going out of your way to delete it probably flags it as important moving it up the pile and making it more likely somebody'll actually read it. Like how chrome keeps special tabs on incognito. besides theres such a big pile of data what are the odds they actually care about mine even if actually deleting it was an option...which it isn't, they keep it anyway(linked to you, influencing your results and everything) for a year and a half regardless of your settings or deleting it after which they keep it anyway but claim to alter the data to be more anonymous.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Pretty much. I just assume the NSA isn't after people like me and nothing bad will come out of it... but you never know.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Good luck with my false identity.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Since I don't have a Gmail account or anything else where Google has my name, wouldn't all they have is a history that (random IP address) has been to these sites/made these searches?

It's hardly a privacy issue if they don't even know who I am.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

i think your real name is really irrelevant, your searches on the other hand are not.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

But isn't that what privacy is; "personal" privacy? If they don't know who I am, all they can see is that some IP address is visiting certain sites etc.
Sure, they can target ads to that IP that they think would be more effective, but that's hardly a breach of my personal privacy.

No different than say, how beer adverts play during sporting events on TV. They don't know who I am, but they know that if I am watching this channel with this game on, I likely fall into the demographic that they are targeting. Nothing sinister about that, and I would rather see ads that target my demo than tampon/diaper/etc ads.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

the first joke is that today you don't even need to have used your real name, your friends will do it for you on facebook or other services by sending you email invites and tagging you etc, which will build a shadow profile of you on those services even if you are not there. If you send an email to gmail, it will be scanned for keywords whether or not you have agreed to their terms of service and a profile will be built as well even if it isn't necessarily used. These profiles will still be sold by one company to another ( some of those who said in their privacy policy that they don't, have, while other change their privacy policies without giving you any notice of it ).

What's more, your searches actually are your id. It has been done with yahoo where anon searches have been made public. It took a matter of minutes to id some people who made those searches, since searching for say "steam", "doctor feet oregon", "buy house city X", "search job" etc will say that you are a jobless guy with feets problems in oregon looking to buy a house in X and playing steam, which correlated/cross referenced with other searches will finally say : Ok, this the guy.

It has been done with yahoo, AOL, names have been found this way.

READ THIS

HAVE FUN HERE

meet Thelma Arnold, aka user 4417749

yeah the cool thing is not just that private companies build profiles of you, assembling bits of it from here, bits from there, selling and buying, and making it available to the various governments ( who will never do anything bad with it as History teaches us, no, the cool thing is when something like that happens, where your searches are leaked to the public and allow to find your name etc, or when facebook decides to put everything you made private public... or when the company is just hacked. So much fun. Especially when your social security number is leaked, which makes it very easy to find the rest of the info on you and do an beautiful ID theft... so much fun )

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Much of this doesn't apply to me. I'm not an American so the companies working with the US gov don't concern me too much. As well, I don't use Facebook or any other social media and even if someone "tagged" me in a photo, it's a meaningless tag as it's just a face with no info.

As for those links, it seems Thelma is a unique case rather than a standard. Look at the main Search-Logs site, the "20 most interesting users" are just generic searches that reveal nothing. I live in a city of over a million people, if I search for "dentists in my area" or something to that effect it's far too general to do anything with. Even if you look over Thelma's 3 page record, the only way you can identify it as her is that by page 2-3 she starts searching for last names. If she hadn't done that the rest of the record is just "any old lady" pretty much.

Overall, I just find it hard to be scared of all this (yes, even the fear mongering "stolen SSN!"). Google tracks this data to target ads at you, hardly noble but hardly the calamity the internet makes it out to be. They are looking after their bottom line, not plotting against you. All companies do this.

Think about it, when you go to a supermarket and buy food their computer knows all the items you bought. They can use this to better set up shelves to target impulse buys or cross-promoted items. If you used a bank card or reward card they may even have your name or address so they know where to target their flyers, etc. They don't collect this data for evil, they collect it to try and make more money; because that's what businesses do.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Thanks for the tip

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

you're welcome

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID WGHWAHAWHAWH

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Burned.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Why do you have the option to keep a search history turned on anyway?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Well what do you know, I've already turned it off. Good for me!

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

THX

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I went looking for interesting things I've looked at before.

Turns out, I'm pretty boring =P

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

One important point thought.

Your searches are still being logged by google "for internal purposes" and will be made partially anon after 18 months.

You can turn of whatever you want, it's still going to be logged. Only difference is that if you will leave it on it will be kept forever.

Just sayin'

Plus they have the right to put it back on for everybody as a change of privacy policy, as facebook did with its own privacy policy when all private profiles got switched to public.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

+

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Already off :)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

that's good

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Porn sites lol?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

That is so akward.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

:D

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Closed 11 years ago by GabreeEL.