Google Web History: Very Cool, Very Creepy
What were you thinking about on November 30, 2006? If you'd asked me that question yesterday, I would have had no clue. Today, I know the answer: I was wondering about how to make international calls, checking on the definition of temperate and planning to work late. I know that because today, I set up Google Web History.
This disturbingly thorough new service keeps track of everywhere you go, what you search for and what you view on the Internet, as long as you're signed into your Google account.
While Google asks you to opt in to the Web History service, it's got a history of your Google searches already. As soon as I signed up, Google showed a history of my searches back to Dec. 22, 2005, which is probably when I first signed up for my Google account.
Now that I've signed up for Web History, Google's keeping track not only of my searches, but every page I visit while I'm signed in. (If you're like me and have checked "Remember me on this computer" on the Gmail home page, then signing in once can keep you logged into the system for as long as two weeks.)
Web History's efficiency is a little creepy. I visited thecoolhunter.net on one tab, then clicked over to the tab with Web History, clicked refresh and coolhunter appeared at the top of the list. I always knew that what I did on the net wasn't secret and was likely being tracked by one or more cookies, but seeing the tracking happen immediately hit me in a visceral way.
Of course, there are lots of handy and interesting uses of Web History. You can search your history, making it much easier to find information you remember seeing a while ago, but can't remember where. You can see what sites you visit most often, what you most often search for and even on what days and months you do most of your searching.
But one discovery about Web History made me decide to turn it off once I finish this post. The service gave me a list of the sites I most frequently clicked on. At No. 1 was a Disney site about fairies. No, I'm not stalking Tinkerbell, but my 9-year-old daughter loves the site and visits obsessively. Since my daughter frequently uses our home PC after I've checked my Gmail account, her tweaking of her online fairies goes into my browsing history. So do my wife's web searches and son's browsing. All of which makes Google Web History a sort of backdoor way for me to monitor my family's web activity. And in the end, that just seems too creepy to me.
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If Google's Web History allows you to see everything like that when you've signed in, do they allow you to actually delete your history as well?
It should be up to the user if Google is allowed to keep "creepy" things, or not.
Did Microsoft buy Google when we weren't looking? I don't like big brother recording everything I do. Bad move Google.
It's becoming more and more evident that lack of reading comprehension and/or research is driving people's comments. In order for the Web History tool to be used, you have to sign in and chose what elements YOU wish to save. It is completely VOLUNTARY.
And if you're just asking now if you have the capability to reverse the onsite collection and accumulation of data you yourself volunteered to hand over ... maybe the phrase "look before you leap" would be beneficial.
crescentdave, if you have a google account, your web history is being recorded regardless of whether you choose to sign up for G Web Histroy. Signing up merely gives you access to that data.
to delete ur google web history, log on to ur gmail account
on the top left corner there will be a "my services". click on that and choose "edit" under my services. now u can delete the history service.