7 ms·

Check your Google history

134 points by algorithm_dk 12y ago

mgrouchy 12y ago
Clicked on this and says I don't have it enabled. From the collected reactions so far in here. I am expecting that is a good thing.
- thearn4 12y ago
  Same. It looks like I must have stumbled on this awhile back, turned it off, then forgot about it.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- slashcom 12y ago
  Same; though it looks like it might be because my account is a Google Apps account.
- Socketubs 12y ago
  Disable it just mean that YOU won't be able to read it. Google still collect this data so far.
  - dirkgently 12y ago
    > Google still collect this data so far. Citation please. Or at least you meant to say Google still _anonymously_ collects this data?
    - bigbugbag 12y ago
      There's nothing anonymous about google's collection of data. Here it just means it won't be tied to your google account but to whatever kind of profile google uses to track searches you make.
      - dirkgently 12y ago
        So assuming your comment is based on a fact (and I still don't see any citation), do you mean to say the "whatever kind of profile" google uses can still be tied to your google account? If not, then it's _anonymous_ as far as I am concerned.
- molsongolden 12y ago
  Not sure how everyone ended up with this turned on. I have no search or location history :(
- ctdonath 12y ago
  "We are sorry, but you do not have access to this service. Please contact your domain administrator for access." Eh, whut?
  - packetslave 12y ago
    you're logged into an Apps for Your Domain account, and that service isn't enabled.
Yuioup 12y ago
Is there a way to select my entire history and delete it all? [EDIT] Never mind I found it. It's under "Settings" [EDIT EDIT] Thanks for migstopheles for the direct link.
- migstopheles 12y ago
  https://history.google.com/history/settings https://history.google.com/history/settings, there's a link there to delete everything. EDIT As you already know.
  - Yuioup 12y ago
    Thanks! I found it a few seconds later.
- laichzeit0 12y ago
  The question however is whether it's really deleted or just not being displayed to you anymore. Only Google can answer that.
  - TheCraiggers 12y ago
    Well, if you're going to be that paranoid, there's no guarantee that they're not still recording / saving all your searches after you disable saved searches. The point I'm trying to make is either you trust Google to abide by your wishes and not save your search history, or you don't.
    - nyrina 12y ago
      I don't know about you, but the companies I've worked with don't delete anything - no matter what.
      - TheCraiggers 12y ago
        Well, the ones I've worked for do. It all boils down to risk. Yes, there is some data that companies are required to keep for N years due to auditing, etc. That's unavoidable. But there comes a point where keeping data (especially personal information that is usually covered by numerous laws and 200-page policies from bodies such as the credit card industry) becomes a liability. Companies typically don't like liabilities, and therefor delete it. Now, there are data that a company might consider keeping because the income generated by keeping it outweighs the risk associated by mishandling it. And you're right, there's no way of knowing what Google considers this to be. But that was my original point- if you don't trust Google to delete your history when you ask, then why do you trust them to not keep it in the first place when you opt-out?
BaconJuice 12y ago
Yep, this is scary as hell. EDIT. How Badly would deleting all my history effect my google searches?
- infinitone 12y ago
  Well considering that I've had it off this whole time, I doubt its that bad. Maybe even you're getting a lighter version of duckduckgo.
- thegeomaster 12y ago
  I don't think it would. I've had it disabled for a long time and never noticed anything strange.
- djanogo 12y ago
  I disabled history the first time I saw the option to turn it off (more than few years back), I never had problem finding what I am looking for. I am sure everybody here knows that this only means that Google apps don't use your history, but it's still saved.
- mantrax5 12y ago
  If anything, it'll improve your searches. I always disable search history, on all my accounts.
icpmacdo 12y ago
I would have thought I had more than 11K searches. How many searches did you guys have?
- danesparza 12y ago
  Total searches: 60382
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- Tenoke 12y ago
  I have 21705 and for some reason my history starts from Mar 10, 2013 (I was sure I've had history on for years longer than that), except for some photo searches in 2011 when I was testing an android app. At any rate, I wish they did more visualizations, and allowed you to see more than the top 5 results for the ones they have.
- philmcc 12y ago
  Total Searches: 75954 I wish I could see my oldest. I also wish someone would create a script which would search through my searches (!) and infer what my interests are, over time, and display them on a horizontal timeline.
- anatoly 12y ago
  66k. Aww, I'd have guessed something like 100k. Weirdly disappointed.
id 12y ago
It surprises me how many people have a google account with their real name and always keep logged in.
- infinitone 12y ago
  With the forced G+ integration, its hard not to.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    How often do you find yourself using G+, and needing to log in?
- lucaspiller 12y ago
  Why? The NSA already know everything I'm doing, using a fake name and logging out isn't going to do much to stop that.
  - id 12y ago
    You're probably not a target and Google is not the NSA. I don't think capitulating and voluntarily giving them your data helps.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      If you don't want to give them your data, you mustn't use Google. Logging out is nothing more than a placebo.
      - id 12y ago
        Not using Google is probably the best solution. If you still have to use it for whatever reason, don't give them all your data. The only thing you really have to give them is your search term.
        icebraining 12y ago
thegeomaster 12y ago
I remember finding this and disabling it a long time ago. Thought I'd regret it later when I realize I don't have a lengthy log of my history with Google, but actually the feeling of not being creeped out is great.
- doxcf434 12y ago
  Same here, I disabled it, but they turned it back on apparently.
speedylocs 12y ago
How is it possible that I only have searches from May (~500). I'm confident I've always been logged in to my google account, though I only re-enabled G+ recently...
phkahler 12y ago
All I get from following the links in the comments is a blue button to turn ON some google feature. Have I avoided opting IN to something nasty thus far?
HarrietJones 12y ago
I'm not creeped out by it, but I can understand why other people may be. Total searches: 68452 That is a lot of searches.
- ch0wn 12y ago
  75105 and also not creeped out. Search results are a whole lot more relevant for me when I'm logged in, especially when searching for dev-related topics that oftentimes have very generic, real-world terms with specific meanings in that context.
  - UweSchmidt 12y ago
    What kinds of dev-related topics though. Looking up basic language syntax over and over? Fishing for copy&paste-ready code samples? Or rather badass, sophisticated and cutting edge comp sci topics? Stuff that could ... simplify the application process at any software company? I'd bet some analysis could show common search patterns, or paths of understanding that programmers go from noob to various levels of enlightenment.
- altcognito 12y ago
  71060 since November 21st 2007. (2379 days). Admittedly, I wasn't the only one who was likely getting logged as a searcher for a number of those years. 30 searches per day. That's a lot of searches per day.
scrabble 12y ago
Mine is almost empty, and the stuff in there is just about all dev stuff. Switching to DDG really took care of this particular problem.
danesparza 12y ago
This is a pretty old function of Google (that predates Google+ by several years). I'm surprised this is news.
- gavinpc 12y ago
  If anyone around here doesn't already know about it, Google must want it to be very out-of-the-way. I would love to see typical users' reactions to this killer feature: it would be perfect for one of those hidden-camera, person-off-the-street, "No way!" sort of ads. I turned it off circa 2006 and I'm glad to see that it's still off.
mantrax5 12y ago
So I always tell my clients to not create new Google accounts just for their site analytics, because Google tracks all kinds of shit in there. But they don't get it. So when they inevitably give me that account, I go and delete and disable the search history. But let me tell you. To disable the search history I first need to open that page, and I've seen a bunch of searches I honestly wish I wouldn't have.
- hamburglar 12y ago
  Wait, you go and delete the search history from someone else's account? And it's your client? Wow. And then you complain about what you see when you're in there?
  - saraid216 12y ago
    It's not creepy if you're the one doing it, apparently?
  - mantrax5 12y ago
    An account specifically created to host a site analytics group, and which clients always accidentally remain logged into. I think I'll get above your cheap outrage and say I did the right thing by going in and disabling the search history.
    - hamburglar 12y ago
      I wouldn't go so far as to say outrage. Let's call it confusion. You advocate deleting the history to your clients, they don't do it, so you go ahead and do it anyway. And along the way, you get bothered by what you see when going into the history pages. If I were in your situation, I'd figure that maybe the client has an unstated reason for not wanting to delete the history and consider it none of my business.
      - mantrax5 12y ago
        I don't advocate deleting the history of my clients, do you have problem with reading comprehension? The thing I "advocate" happens to be the best practice recommended by Google (if you'd care to dig into the docs, and no one does) for sharing the administration and viewing of Site Analytics groups (they're called Site Analytics "accounts" which are inside Google "accounts" so you can imagine that many folks get confused over what is what). The best practice is not to create a new Google account and not to share that account's password with strangers (or even friends). There's a method for sharing just analytics with other Google Accounts, buried in the Site Analytics admin panel. With that setup, the client will be creating a Site Analytics account within his personal Google account, and sharing said Site Analytics with my personal account. And I won't be able to see, let alone delete or disable their search history. Alas, that's not how things usually go. People just don't get it, so they create new Google accounts over my head, share it with everyone, and everyone's search history ends up in the shared accounts. So when that accounts gets to me, I delete & disable search history. I know for a fact no one who ever logged into this shared account intended to share their browsing history with people. Exacerbating the problem is the fact Google accounts are intentionally designed so that you log in and forget you're logged in. Google wants to know who you are. The accounts are also designed so that if you want a standalone account for analytics, it's a full-blown Google account, so you end up with people's search history in there (and a bunch of other services no one asked about, like email, docs etc.). And people don't understand the implications of sharing a Google account they've been logged into. By the way, thanks for twisting my words and intent out of shape like you did. Now that I've had to waste the time to explain my original post as if to an imbecile, I'm sure everyone reading this will gain clarity about the situation I was describing. Cheers.
seky 12y ago
Does turning it off just mean YOU wonn't me able see the recorded history? :-)
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Indeed, that is exactly what it does.
pepsi 12y ago
And your location history - if you use Google Now, this is probably enabled. https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0 https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0
- pmorici 12y ago
  Argh! I knew about the search history and had it turned off but I did not know about this location database. I recently got an Android phone and it must save your location history because it is showing all my travel for the period I've been using the phone. This is creepy as hell. This phone is going back.
  - whatcd 12y ago
    It's not Android; it's the services. This happens on iPhone's too.
  - delluminatus 12y ago
    You can disable the location tracking on your phone. I would try that before you return it. You can forbid Google from collecting location data and still be able to use location functionality on the phone (like for navigation).
    - pmorici 12y ago
      I didn't particularly care for it anyways and it was a try it for 30-days deal so. I've used Google maps on my iPhone but I guess since I never signed it it didn't record the locations. I realize that the phone company can to some extent track your location as well based on the cell tower but that isn't quite as accurate or convenient as the GPS data.
      - nl 12y ago
        Sorry, but your threat modelling is all wrong here. the phone company can to some extent track your location as well based on the cell tower The phone companies sell this data[1], and it can be obtained in civil court cases[2] and it is usually pretty accurate[3]. convenient as the GPS data Convenient for whom? You can't ever see it, but the network operator and its clients can see it very easily. Contrast that to Google Location Services, where you have an interface to remove parts of your history and/or you can turn it off completely. Plus it is used to give you useful stuff like Google Now travel time notifications for places you regularly travel to. [1] eg: http://www.mobilephonelocate.com/cell-phone-tracking.html http://www.mobilephonelocate.com/cell-phone-tracking.html [2] http://www.iiiweb.net/forensic-services/cell-phone-tower-triangulation/ http://www.iiiweb.net/forensic-services/cell-phone-tower-tri... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking#Network-based http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking#Network-b...
nathanb 12y ago
Am I the only one who finds this to be useful? Having a searchable search history feels kinda meta, but this basically solves the problem of "I know I found this webpage a while back but I can't find it again". Ideally this sort of thing would be handled by the browser's history feature and stored locally, but the browser can't (or at least doesn't) correlate between "you searched for this term" and "you clicked this result". I also find that the browser's history search leaves something to be desired, and let's not increase Firefox's memory footprint even more by making it better! (Browser history is also stored online for most browsers these days, and especially if you use Chrome then Google already have your history anyway).
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  > (Browser history is also stored online for most browsers these days, and especially if you use Chrome then Google already have your history anyway). Chrome Sync supports optional client-side encryption, and Firefox Sync always uses client-side encryption.
  - nathanb 12y ago
    Uh, so what are we afraid of here? Do you honestly believe that if the NSA decided they wanted your browser history, the encryption used by Chrome or Firefox would stymie them for too long? I guess I'm just not really clear on what folks are worried about happening with these history data. Is the concern that the data could be leaked, revealing potentially privacy-compromising information? Or that Google might mine it in an attempt to make a buck off of your metadata? Or that the government might use it to identify you as a potential political dissident? Personally, I find the Google search history to be useful, though less useful lately since DDG is my primary search engine now. I don't quite get the knee-jerk "this is creepy" outrage and fear I see from some folks about this feature.
    - riquito 12y ago
      > Do you honestly believe that if the NSA decided they wanted your browser history, the encryption used by Chrome or Firefox would stymie them for too long? Yes, I do. But I also believe that they would more easily access my computer after I inserted the master password, or detain me with false accuses until I give up, and maybe more. We're talking about organizations that do not abide by the law. But one thing is to worry for the NSA coming after you, another is to keep your history hidden from Google.
JacksonGariety 12y ago
Naturally, you can only remove 26 items at a time. Makes perfect sense.
- mikerice 12y ago
  You can actually delete it all on the settings page, as well as turning off your history. https://history.google.com/history/settings?hl=en https://history.google.com/history/settings?hl=en
jebus989 12y ago
I know we're meant to be freaked out by this but I think it would actually be pretty cool to have data for tens of thousands of search results stretching back a decade or so. With a bit of analysis you could get some cool insights into past interests, their dynamics over time etc.
- mischanix 12y ago
  Yes, to me, this and the location history are just plain awesome automatic logging that I get for free. That said, it's only free to me because I already value my privacy on the internet at $0. I especially like having a graph that tells me I need to sleep more regularly [1] and I also like having location history that tells me I'm a very boring person in the real world (and that my phone's GPS is wildly inaccurate). [1] http://i.imgur.com/c6cUGrY.png http://i.imgur.com/c6cUGrY.png
  - JoshTriplett 12y ago
    > my privacy on the internet Location history isn't "your privacy on the Internet", it's "your privacy".
    - mischanix 12y ago
      No, because I am aware that my phone connects to the internet. If I want to exclude the internet from my whereabouts, I can just go without my phone.
- ksk 12y ago
  Could you give some examples of these cool insights?
- normloman 12y ago
  I'm not sacraficing my privacy so Google can get some "cool insight into past interests."
  - jebus989 12y ago
jonalmeida 12y ago
Like dansparza mentioned, this isn't new. If you want to avoid having your searches logged specifically on your google account you could always use an incognito/private session. (Yes, it doesn't stop you from being tracked entirely, but it does limit the effect.) Also, DDG has severely decreased my search activity.
6thSigma 12y ago
I turned this off years ago when it first came out. I have no idea if turning this off is a false sense of privacy or not. Either way, I turned it back on recently. There are a few things Google requires this feature on such as keeping a history on the Google Maps app for Android.
dalek2point3 12y ago
No thanks. This is what it looks like if you have web history turned off. http://imgur.com/wgF7Q5J http://imgur.com/wgF7Q5J I've had web history turned off for a while now.
Tenoke 12y ago
An interesting piece of data they show is how often you click on Ads. I seem to do it about once a week, which I did not expect, as in my mind I almost never click on ads (although in a lot of those searches the Ad just leads to the actual site I'm searching for). What are your rates, and are they surprising?
- icebraining 12y ago
  Looking at it confirmed what I thought: I just click on ads when I dislike the advertiser. Google usually gets a few cents whenever I search for GoDaddy, for example.
- maaaats 12y ago
  Looks like it's either lying, or I mistake ads as real results often.
  - GhotiFish 12y ago
    Challenge time! Turn off any adblockers you have, and go to this website: http://www.imgburn.com/ http://www.imgburn.com/ your mission is to successfully download the installer to imgburn. good luck.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Download → Mirror 7. http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2013/12/09/le-truc-quun-codeur-sait-reconnaitre-dinstinct/#post-6911 http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2013/12/09/le-truc-quun-codeur...
- saraid216 12y ago
  Apparently, the last time I clicked on an ad was December 2013.
ratsbane 12y ago
Is there a way to download the entire history?
bowlofpetunias 12y ago
No, I'm not creeped out by it. Largely of course because I have it turned off. I am however shocked by the fact that so many people are okay with it being legal for any company to collect such data from people we all know full well do not understand the consequences. So called opt-in is by far not sufficient permission for this. That should come with a signed contract that includes penalty clauses that could in extremis bankrupt the company and jail it's owners. A contract that can only be signed by consenting adults. Google now stalks your children and sells their data. Are you really okay with that? It's ironic that it's called "history", because we obviously haven't learned anything from it.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  eponysterical
matthuggins 12y ago
This is news? Isn't this about a decade old now?
canvia 12y ago
I wonder if a competing search engine would be willing to buy your search loyalty based on your past search volume. It seems like your value as a customer would be pretty easy to calculate with this data.
harmonicon 12y ago
Turned it off years ago. Thank goodness.
- abstrct 12y ago
  I had turned it off on my account as well, which is what made seeing two years of search history from myself so surprising. I assume when my account was +'d, this setting was accidentally missed. Moral of the story, just take a quick look anyways.
- joeyspn 12y ago
  Me too, but we know Google (like facebook, etc) probably logs all of your IP activity... that's how ad targeting works
romseb 12y ago
To see so many people on here finding this a useful feature I wonder if there are browser extensions which store the search history (independent of the search provider) client-side. I love how I can access years of search queries for words in other languages in an extension like Instant Translate: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/instant-translate/ihmgiclibbndffejedjimfjmfoabpcke https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/instant-translate/...
recroad 12y ago
I guarantee you that this feature will cause many people to get divorced.
a3_nm 12y ago
You can get data about your Google queries from the Firefox history database even when you are not using Google history, for instance using the following (no guarantees on sanity/completeness, assumes you are on Unix with necessary utilities installed, have only one profile folder, etc.): sqlite3 ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/places.sqlite 'select last_visit_date,url from moz_places;' | perl -pe 's/%([0-9a-f]{2})/sprintf("%s", pack("H2",$1))/eig' | grep -E 'google\.[a-z]{2,3}/search?' | sed 's/^$.*$|.*[?&]q=$[^&]*$$&.*$\?/\1|\2/' | perl -pe 's/%([0-9a-f]{2})/sprintf("%s", pack("H2",$1))/eig' | tr '|+' ' ' | sort -k2,2 | uniq -f1 | sort -k1,1n
ansimionescu 12y ago
I'm not a privacy freak, but I still have Search and Youtube history turned off. Why? Because the superficial kind of machine learning done by everyone today (Google included) yields crap results. Example: I'm subscribed to pewdiepie on Youtube (the other subscriptions being mostly dev stuff). ALL the videos recommended now are garbage made for/by mentally challenged 14 year olds. It was even worse when I had YT history on. At least now I get somewhat relevant related videos (useful when learning about a new technology, a startup, etc). == Edit You do realise that I'm subscribed to only 1 _shitty_ channel and 15+ _real_ ones? Actually, this might mean that Youtube's algorithms are skewed toward popular stuff (there's no contest between pewds and Google Developers, lol).
- GhotiFish 12y ago
  ... come on, you have to see why youtube would be confused. I'm confused.
- sergiotapia 12y ago
  Well you're subscribed to pewdiepie - sounds to me like the recommended videos are right on the money. It's not like pewdiepie's demo is in the 20-28 year bracket.
- izzydata 12y ago
  You subscribed to a mentally challenged 14 year old and you are questioning why you get suggestions for videos by mentally challenged 14 year olds? But seriously, it could probably be improved. Does anyone know if down voting videos affects recommendations? I also wish I could explicitly ignore things on the recommendations section before I watch them. Just out of principle I don't want to give them a view and potentially ad money just so I can down vote them.
  - ansimionescu 12y ago
    Obviously, pewdiepie isn't the epitome of intellectual achievement, but he's not _that_ bad either. I like him because (i) he's Swedish and about my age and (ii) his insane success is a very interesting and relatively new phenomenon. Have a look at some stats, his subscribers and views skyrocketed organically like nothing seen before.
sergiotapia 12y ago
Thanks, just disabled this crap and deleted everything associated to my search history. This is beyond creepy and I just don't like. I've switched entirely to Firefox/DuckDuckgo since version 29 fixed it's developer tools and I won't switch back to the monolith that is Google. It's funny, but I trust Microsoft entirely more than Google.
- flurpitude 12y ago
  I am unconvinced that turning off search history and deleting existing history really does that.
mpnordland 12y ago
I'd forgotten about this. I keep thinking about deleting my google account but I have so many accounts linked to it. I host my own email, but I haven't taken the plunge of hooking everything up with that because of what happened with @n.
wildpeaks 12y ago
My #1 request with Chrome would be if it could sort the history by "last seen/interacted with", not by last opened tab because it would be more accurate when I'm trying to retrace my steps e.g. "I know I was just reading X page 10 minutes ago, but that was a page I opened two hours ago, so it's way way down in the history".
wsinks 12y ago
I really wish there was a way to see which devices searched for each one. I found one or two entries that I don't remember. Who is Maurice Frazier? I don't know, but I searched for him today. Time to change the password...
mvanveen 12y ago
There doesn't seem to be any way to export to a machine-readable format. Not even the Google Data Liberation Front seems to be of any help :/ Feeling determined and stubborn, I even tried writing a quick CasperJS script to scrape the page data but quickly ran into two-factor auth obstacles. Since Google won't let you login with an application-specific password and doesn't have any API endpoint which devs can hit to get this data, it makes things rather tricky! Getting easy, downloadable access to this search history directly from Google doesn't seem within the grasp of even a determined developer at this point.
LeoPanthera 12y ago
You can also opt-out of ad profiling here: https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads
Istof 12y ago
I turned my history off so that I (or someone else) can't see what Google knows about my browsing history (I'm sure Google keep a copy).
vxNsr 12y ago
I have this and youtube history turned off because both use broken machine learning to try to interest me in nonsense I don't care about each time I search for something. Example: Yea I clicked on the "Oprah gives a car to everyone" video, but right now I'm trying to watch videos relevant to PHP security, and I don't care to see talkshow outtakes in the "related" sidebar.
SilasX 12y ago
"Today we reveal our latest feature, where you can get advance notice of how we'll blackmail you!"
pwenzel 12y ago
Kind of frustrated to see that Google's Search History feature was somehow re-enabled years after I disabled it.
- guiseroom 12y ago
  Mine too except I disabled it back in December.
pbreit 12y ago
I was pleased to see that it's password protected even though I know I was already logged in to "google". Does anyone know what the specific authentication rules are? I'm hoping my History session expires quickly.
joeyspn 12y ago
"Turn your history on" Me: No thanks, I disabled it long ago although we all know Google prob logs all of your IP activity (ad targeting and stuff)
kull 12y ago
Tell me your Top Sites and I will tell you who you are. My Top sites: 1. www.google.com 2. stackoverflow.com 3. wordpress.org 4. en.wikipedia.org 5. maps.google.com
borkabrak 12y ago
Wow, I use Google like, a lot.
_navaneethan 12y ago
I find it is very useful only.But i am wondering how it captures the search in github and searching in other sites? It is kinda bookmarks simplified
diimdeep 12y ago
Total Google searches: 63500 I wish there is good api to scrape search hist for analysis..
jacquesm 12y ago
Note that turning off your google history does absolutely nothing on googles side besides flipping one bit which stops you from having access to the data too. They're still collecting all your searches and associating them with you.
arck 12y ago
Thats useful as well as harmful! If I delete my browsing history from google search and chrome, does Google still backup these deleted history?

134 points by algorithm_dk 12y ago

Clicked on this and says I don't have it enabled. From the collected reactions so far in here. I am expecting that is a good thing.

thearn4 12y ago
Same. It looks like I must have stumbled on this awhile back, turned it off, then forgot about it.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
slashcom 12y ago
Same; though it looks like it might be because my account is a Google Apps account.
Socketubs 12y ago
Disable it just mean that YOU won't be able to read it. Google still collect this data so far.
- dirkgently 12y ago
  > Google still collect this data so far. Citation please. Or at least you meant to say Google still _anonymously_ collects this data?
  - bigbugbag 12y ago
    There's nothing anonymous about google's collection of data. Here it just means it won't be tied to your google account but to whatever kind of profile google uses to track searches you make.
    - dirkgently 12y ago
      So assuming your comment is based on a fact (and I still don't see any citation), do you mean to say the "whatever kind of profile" google uses can still be tied to your google account? If not, then it's _anonymous_ as far as I am concerned.
molsongolden 12y ago
Not sure how everyone ended up with this turned on. I have no search or location history :(
ctdonath 12y ago
"We are sorry, but you do not have access to this service. Please contact your domain administrator for access." Eh, whut?
- packetslave 12y ago
  you're logged into an Apps for Your Domain account, and that service isn't enabled.

Yuioup 12y ago

Is there a way to select my entire history and delete it all? [EDIT] Never mind I found it. It's under "Settings" [EDIT EDIT] Thanks for migstopheles for the direct link.

migstopheles 12y ago
https://history.google.com/history/settings https://history.google.com/history/settings, there's a link there to delete everything. EDIT As you already know.
- Yuioup 12y ago
  Thanks! I found it a few seconds later.
laichzeit0 12y ago
The question however is whether it's really deleted or just not being displayed to you anymore. Only Google can answer that.
- TheCraiggers 12y ago
  Well, if you're going to be that paranoid, there's no guarantee that they're not still recording / saving all your searches after you disable saved searches. The point I'm trying to make is either you trust Google to abide by your wishes and not save your search history, or you don't.
  - nyrina 12y ago
    I don't know about you, but the companies I've worked with don't delete anything - no matter what.
    - TheCraiggers 12y ago
      Well, the ones I've worked for do. It all boils down to risk. Yes, there is some data that companies are required to keep for N years due to auditing, etc. That's unavoidable. But there comes a point where keeping data (especially personal information that is usually covered by numerous laws and 200-page policies from bodies such as the credit card industry) becomes a liability. Companies typically don't like liabilities, and therefor delete it. Now, there are data that a company might consider keeping because the income generated by keeping it outweighs the risk associated by mishandling it. And you're right, there's no way of knowing what Google considers this to be. But that was my original point- if you don't trust Google to delete your history when you ask, then why do you trust them to not keep it in the first place when you opt-out?

BaconJuice 12y ago

Yep, this is scary as hell. EDIT. How Badly would deleting all my history effect my google searches?

infinitone 12y ago
Well considering that I've had it off this whole time, I doubt its that bad. Maybe even you're getting a lighter version of duckduckgo.
thegeomaster 12y ago
I don't think it would. I've had it disabled for a long time and never noticed anything strange.
djanogo 12y ago
I disabled history the first time I saw the option to turn it off (more than few years back), I never had problem finding what I am looking for. I am sure everybody here knows that this only means that Google apps don't use your history, but it's still saved.
mantrax5 12y ago
If anything, it'll improve your searches. I always disable search history, on all my accounts.

icpmacdo 12y ago

I would have thought I had more than 11K searches. How many searches did you guys have?

danesparza 12y ago
Total searches: 60382
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
Tenoke 12y ago
I have 21705 and for some reason my history starts from Mar 10, 2013 (I was sure I've had history on for years longer than that), except for some photo searches in 2011 when I was testing an android app. At any rate, I wish they did more visualizations, and allowed you to see more than the top 5 results for the ones they have.
philmcc 12y ago
Total Searches: 75954 I wish I could see my oldest. I also wish someone would create a script which would search through my searches (!) and infer what my interests are, over time, and display them on a horizontal timeline.
anatoly 12y ago
66k. Aww, I'd have guessed something like 100k. Weirdly disappointed.

id 12y ago

It surprises me how many people have a google account with their real name and always keep logged in.

infinitone 12y ago
With the forced G+ integration, its hard not to.
- dublinben 12y ago
  How often do you find yourself using G+, and needing to log in?
lucaspiller 12y ago
Why? The NSA already know everything I'm doing, using a fake name and logging out isn't going to do much to stop that.
- id 12y ago
  You're probably not a target and Google is not the NSA. I don't think capitulating and voluntarily giving them your data helps.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    If you don't want to give them your data, you mustn't use Google. Logging out is nothing more than a placebo.
    - id 12y ago
      Not using Google is probably the best solution. If you still have to use it for whatever reason, don't give them all your data. The only thing you really have to give them is your search term.
      - icebraining 12y ago

thegeomaster 12y ago

I remember finding this and disabling it a long time ago. Thought I'd regret it later when I realize I don't have a lengthy log of my history with Google, but actually the feeling of not being creeped out is great.

doxcf434 12y ago
Same here, I disabled it, but they turned it back on apparently.

speedylocs 12y ago

How is it possible that I only have searches from May (~500). I'm confident I've always been logged in to my google account, though I only re-enabled G+ recently...

phkahler 12y ago

All I get from following the links in the comments is a blue button to turn ON some google feature. Have I avoided opting IN to something nasty thus far?

HarrietJones 12y ago

I'm not creeped out by it, but I can understand why other people may be. Total searches: 68452 That is a lot of searches.

ch0wn 12y ago
75105 and also not creeped out. Search results are a whole lot more relevant for me when I'm logged in, especially when searching for dev-related topics that oftentimes have very generic, real-world terms with specific meanings in that context.
- UweSchmidt 12y ago
  What kinds of dev-related topics though. Looking up basic language syntax over and over? Fishing for copy&paste-ready code samples? Or rather badass, sophisticated and cutting edge comp sci topics? Stuff that could ... simplify the application process at any software company? I'd bet some analysis could show common search patterns, or paths of understanding that programmers go from noob to various levels of enlightenment.
altcognito 12y ago
71060 since November 21st 2007. (2379 days). Admittedly, I wasn't the only one who was likely getting logged as a searcher for a number of those years. 30 searches per day. That's a lot of searches per day.

scrabble 12y ago

Mine is almost empty, and the stuff in there is just about all dev stuff. Switching to DDG really took care of this particular problem.

danesparza 12y ago

This is a pretty old function of Google (that predates Google+ by several years). I'm surprised this is news.

gavinpc 12y ago
If anyone around here doesn't already know about it, Google must want it to be very out-of-the-way. I would love to see typical users' reactions to this killer feature: it would be perfect for one of those hidden-camera, person-off-the-street, "No way!" sort of ads. I turned it off circa 2006 and I'm glad to see that it's still off.

mantrax5 12y ago

So I always tell my clients to not create new Google accounts just for their site analytics, because Google tracks all kinds of shit in there. But they don't get it. So when they inevitably give me that account, I go and delete and disable the search history. But let me tell you. To disable the search history I first need to open that page, and I've seen a bunch of searches I honestly wish I wouldn't have.

hamburglar 12y ago
Wait, you go and delete the search history from someone else's account? And it's your client? Wow. And then you complain about what you see when you're in there?
- saraid216 12y ago
  It's not creepy if you're the one doing it, apparently?
- mantrax5 12y ago
  An account specifically created to host a site analytics group, and which clients always accidentally remain logged into. I think I'll get above your cheap outrage and say I did the right thing by going in and disabling the search history.
  - hamburglar 12y ago
    I wouldn't go so far as to say outrage. Let's call it confusion. You advocate deleting the history to your clients, they don't do it, so you go ahead and do it anyway. And along the way, you get bothered by what you see when going into the history pages. If I were in your situation, I'd figure that maybe the client has an unstated reason for not wanting to delete the history and consider it none of my business.
    - mantrax5 12y ago
      I don't advocate deleting the history of my clients, do you have problem with reading comprehension? The thing I "advocate" happens to be the best practice recommended by Google (if you'd care to dig into the docs, and no one does) for sharing the administration and viewing of Site Analytics groups (they're called Site Analytics "accounts" which are inside Google "accounts" so you can imagine that many folks get confused over what is what). The best practice is not to create a new Google account and not to share that account's password with strangers (or even friends). There's a method for sharing just analytics with other Google Accounts, buried in the Site Analytics admin panel. With that setup, the client will be creating a Site Analytics account within his personal Google account, and sharing said Site Analytics with my personal account. And I won't be able to see, let alone delete or disable their search history. Alas, that's not how things usually go. People just don't get it, so they create new Google accounts over my head, share it with everyone, and everyone's search history ends up in the shared accounts. So when that accounts gets to me, I delete & disable search history. I know for a fact no one who ever logged into this shared account intended to share their browsing history with people. Exacerbating the problem is the fact Google accounts are intentionally designed so that you log in and forget you're logged in. Google wants to know who you are. The accounts are also designed so that if you want a standalone account for analytics, it's a full-blown Google account, so you end up with people's search history in there (and a bunch of other services no one asked about, like email, docs etc.). And people don't understand the implications of sharing a Google account they've been logged into. By the way, thanks for twisting my words and intent out of shape like you did. Now that I've had to waste the time to explain my original post as if to an imbecile, I'm sure everyone reading this will gain clarity about the situation I was describing. Cheers.

seky 12y ago

Does turning it off just mean YOU wonn't me able see the recorded history? :-)

jacquesm 12y ago
Indeed, that is exactly what it does.

pepsi 12y ago

And your location history - if you use Google Now, this is probably enabled. https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0 https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0

pmorici 12y ago
Argh! I knew about the search history and had it turned off but I did not know about this location database. I recently got an Android phone and it must save your location history because it is showing all my travel for the period I've been using the phone. This is creepy as hell. This phone is going back.
- whatcd 12y ago
  It's not Android; it's the services. This happens on iPhone's too.
- delluminatus 12y ago
  You can disable the location tracking on your phone. I would try that before you return it. You can forbid Google from collecting location data and still be able to use location functionality on the phone (like for navigation).
  - pmorici 12y ago
    I didn't particularly care for it anyways and it was a try it for 30-days deal so. I've used Google maps on my iPhone but I guess since I never signed it it didn't record the locations. I realize that the phone company can to some extent track your location as well based on the cell tower but that isn't quite as accurate or convenient as the GPS data.
    - nl 12y ago
      Sorry, but your threat modelling is all wrong here. the phone company can to some extent track your location as well based on the cell tower The phone companies sell this data[1], and it can be obtained in civil court cases[2] and it is usually pretty accurate[3]. convenient as the GPS data Convenient for whom? You can't ever see it, but the network operator and its clients can see it very easily. Contrast that to Google Location Services, where you have an interface to remove parts of your history and/or you can turn it off completely. Plus it is used to give you useful stuff like Google Now travel time notifications for places you regularly travel to. [1] eg: http://www.mobilephonelocate.com/cell-phone-tracking.html http://www.mobilephonelocate.com/cell-phone-tracking.html [2] http://www.iiiweb.net/forensic-services/cell-phone-tower-triangulation/ http://www.iiiweb.net/forensic-services/cell-phone-tower-tri... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking#Network-based http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking#Network-b...

nathanb 12y ago

Am I the only one who finds this to be useful? Having a searchable search history feels kinda meta, but this basically solves the problem of "I know I found this webpage a while back but I can't find it again". Ideally this sort of thing would be handled by the browser's history feature and stored locally, but the browser can't (or at least doesn't) correlate between "you searched for this term" and "you clicked this result". I also find that the browser's history search leaves something to be desired, and let's not increase Firefox's memory footprint even more by making it better! (Browser history is also stored online for most browsers these days, and especially if you use Chrome then Google already have your history anyway).

JoshTriplett 12y ago
> (Browser history is also stored online for most browsers these days, and especially if you use Chrome then Google already have your history anyway). Chrome Sync supports optional client-side encryption, and Firefox Sync always uses client-side encryption.
- nathanb 12y ago
  Uh, so what are we afraid of here? Do you honestly believe that if the NSA decided they wanted your browser history, the encryption used by Chrome or Firefox would stymie them for too long? I guess I'm just not really clear on what folks are worried about happening with these history data. Is the concern that the data could be leaked, revealing potentially privacy-compromising information? Or that Google might mine it in an attempt to make a buck off of your metadata? Or that the government might use it to identify you as a potential political dissident? Personally, I find the Google search history to be useful, though less useful lately since DDG is my primary search engine now. I don't quite get the knee-jerk "this is creepy" outrage and fear I see from some folks about this feature.
  - riquito 12y ago
    > Do you honestly believe that if the NSA decided they wanted your browser history, the encryption used by Chrome or Firefox would stymie them for too long? Yes, I do. But I also believe that they would more easily access my computer after I inserted the master password, or detain me with false accuses until I give up, and maybe more. We're talking about organizations that do not abide by the law. But one thing is to worry for the NSA coming after you, another is to keep your history hidden from Google.

JacksonGariety 12y ago

Naturally, you can only remove 26 items at a time. Makes perfect sense.

mikerice 12y ago
You can actually delete it all on the settings page, as well as turning off your history. https://history.google.com/history/settings?hl=en https://history.google.com/history/settings?hl=en

jebus989 12y ago

I know we're meant to be freaked out by this but I think it would actually be pretty cool to have data for tens of thousands of search results stretching back a decade or so. With a bit of analysis you could get some cool insights into past interests, their dynamics over time etc.

mischanix 12y ago
Yes, to me, this and the location history are just plain awesome automatic logging that I get for free. That said, it's only free to me because I already value my privacy on the internet at $0. I especially like having a graph that tells me I need to sleep more regularly [1] and I also like having location history that tells me I'm a very boring person in the real world (and that my phone's GPS is wildly inaccurate). [1] http://i.imgur.com/c6cUGrY.png http://i.imgur.com/c6cUGrY.png
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  > my privacy on the internet Location history isn't "your privacy on the Internet", it's "your privacy".
  - mischanix 12y ago
    No, because I am aware that my phone connects to the internet. If I want to exclude the internet from my whereabouts, I can just go without my phone.
ksk 12y ago
Could you give some examples of these cool insights?
normloman 12y ago
I'm not sacraficing my privacy so Google can get some "cool insight into past interests."
- jebus989 12y ago

jonalmeida 12y ago

Like dansparza mentioned, this isn't new. If you want to avoid having your searches logged specifically on your google account you could always use an incognito/private session. (Yes, it doesn't stop you from being tracked entirely, but it does limit the effect.) Also, DDG has severely decreased my search activity.

6thSigma 12y ago

I turned this off years ago when it first came out. I have no idea if turning this off is a false sense of privacy or not. Either way, I turned it back on recently. There are a few things Google requires this feature on such as keeping a history on the Google Maps app for Android.

dalek2point3 12y ago

No thanks. This is what it looks like if you have web history turned off. http://imgur.com/wgF7Q5J http://imgur.com/wgF7Q5J I've had web history turned off for a while now.

Tenoke 12y ago

An interesting piece of data they show is how often you click on Ads. I seem to do it about once a week, which I did not expect, as in my mind I almost never click on ads (although in a lot of those searches the Ad just leads to the actual site I'm searching for). What are your rates, and are they surprising?

icebraining 12y ago
Looking at it confirmed what I thought: I just click on ads when I dislike the advertiser. Google usually gets a few cents whenever I search for GoDaddy, for example.
maaaats 12y ago
Looks like it's either lying, or I mistake ads as real results often.
- GhotiFish 12y ago
  Challenge time! Turn off any adblockers you have, and go to this website: http://www.imgburn.com/ http://www.imgburn.com/ your mission is to successfully download the installer to imgburn. good luck.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Download → Mirror 7. http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2013/12/09/le-truc-quun-codeur-sait-reconnaitre-dinstinct/#post-6911 http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2013/12/09/le-truc-quun-codeur...
saraid216 12y ago
Apparently, the last time I clicked on an ad was December 2013.

ratsbane 12y ago

Is there a way to download the entire history?

bowlofpetunias 12y ago

No, I'm not creeped out by it. Largely of course because I have it turned off. I am however shocked by the fact that so many people are okay with it being legal for any company to collect such data from people we all know full well do not understand the consequences. So called opt-in is by far not sufficient permission for this. That should come with a signed contract that includes penalty clauses that could in extremis bankrupt the company and jail it's owners. A contract that can only be signed by consenting adults. Google now stalks your children and sells their data. Are you really okay with that? It's ironic that it's called "history", because we obviously haven't learned anything from it.

anigbrowl 12y ago
eponysterical

matthuggins 12y ago

This is news? Isn't this about a decade old now?

canvia 12y ago

I wonder if a competing search engine would be willing to buy your search loyalty based on your past search volume. It seems like your value as a customer would be pretty easy to calculate with this data.

harmonicon 12y ago

Turned it off years ago. Thank goodness.

abstrct 12y ago
I had turned it off on my account as well, which is what made seeing two years of search history from myself so surprising. I assume when my account was +'d, this setting was accidentally missed. Moral of the story, just take a quick look anyways.
joeyspn 12y ago
Me too, but we know Google (like facebook, etc) probably logs all of your IP activity... that's how ad targeting works

romseb 12y ago

To see so many people on here finding this a useful feature I wonder if there are browser extensions which store the search history (independent of the search provider) client-side. I love how I can access years of search queries for words in other languages in an extension like Instant Translate: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/instant-translate/ihmgiclibbndffejedjimfjmfoabpcke https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/instant-translate/...

recroad 12y ago

I guarantee you that this feature will cause many people to get divorced.

a3_nm 12y ago

You can get data about your Google queries from the Firefox history database even when you are not using Google history, for instance using the following (no guarantees on sanity/completeness, assumes you are on Unix with necessary utilities installed, have only one profile folder, etc.): sqlite3 ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/places.sqlite 'select last_visit_date,url from moz_places;' | perl -pe 's/%([0-9a-f]{2})/sprintf("%s", pack("H2",$1))/eig' | grep -E 'google\.[a-z]{2,3}/search?' | sed 's/^$.*$|.*[?&]q=$[^&]*$$&.*$\?/\1|\2/' | perl -pe 's/%([0-9a-f]{2})/sprintf("%s", pack("H2",$1))/eig' | tr '|+' ' ' | sort -k2,2 | uniq -f1 | sort -k1,1n

ansimionescu 12y ago

I'm not a privacy freak, but I still have Search and Youtube history turned off. Why? Because the superficial kind of machine learning done by everyone today (Google included) yields crap results. Example: I'm subscribed to pewdiepie on Youtube (the other subscriptions being mostly dev stuff). ALL the videos recommended now are garbage made for/by mentally challenged 14 year olds. It was even worse when I had YT history on. At least now I get somewhat relevant related videos (useful when learning about a new technology, a startup, etc). == Edit You do realise that I'm subscribed to only 1 _shitty_ channel and 15+ _real_ ones? Actually, this might mean that Youtube's algorithms are skewed toward popular stuff (there's no contest between pewds and Google Developers, lol).

GhotiFish 12y ago
... come on, you have to see why youtube would be confused. I'm confused.
sergiotapia 12y ago
Well you're subscribed to pewdiepie - sounds to me like the recommended videos are right on the money. It's not like pewdiepie's demo is in the 20-28 year bracket.
izzydata 12y ago
You subscribed to a mentally challenged 14 year old and you are questioning why you get suggestions for videos by mentally challenged 14 year olds? But seriously, it could probably be improved. Does anyone know if down voting videos affects recommendations? I also wish I could explicitly ignore things on the recommendations section before I watch them. Just out of principle I don't want to give them a view and potentially ad money just so I can down vote them.
- ansimionescu 12y ago
  Obviously, pewdiepie isn't the epitome of intellectual achievement, but he's not _that_ bad either. I like him because (i) he's Swedish and about my age and (ii) his insane success is a very interesting and relatively new phenomenon. Have a look at some stats, his subscribers and views skyrocketed organically like nothing seen before.

sergiotapia 12y ago

Thanks, just disabled this crap and deleted everything associated to my search history. This is beyond creepy and I just don't like. I've switched entirely to Firefox/DuckDuckgo since version 29 fixed it's developer tools and I won't switch back to the monolith that is Google. It's funny, but I trust Microsoft entirely more than Google.

flurpitude 12y ago
I am unconvinced that turning off search history and deleting existing history really does that.

mpnordland 12y ago

I'd forgotten about this. I keep thinking about deleting my google account but I have so many accounts linked to it. I host my own email, but I haven't taken the plunge of hooking everything up with that because of what happened with @n.

wildpeaks 12y ago

My #1 request with Chrome would be if it could sort the history by "last seen/interacted with", not by last opened tab because it would be more accurate when I'm trying to retrace my steps e.g. "I know I was just reading X page 10 minutes ago, but that was a page I opened two hours ago, so it's way way down in the history".

wsinks 12y ago

I really wish there was a way to see which devices searched for each one. I found one or two entries that I don't remember. Who is Maurice Frazier? I don't know, but I searched for him today. Time to change the password...

mvanveen 12y ago

There doesn't seem to be any way to export to a machine-readable format. Not even the Google Data Liberation Front seems to be of any help :/ Feeling determined and stubborn, I even tried writing a quick CasperJS script to scrape the page data but quickly ran into two-factor auth obstacles. Since Google won't let you login with an application-specific password and doesn't have any API endpoint which devs can hit to get this data, it makes things rather tricky! Getting easy, downloadable access to this search history directly from Google doesn't seem within the grasp of even a determined developer at this point.

LeoPanthera 12y ago

You can also opt-out of ad profiling here: https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads

Istof 12y ago

I turned my history off so that I (or someone else) can't see what Google knows about my browsing history (I'm sure Google keep a copy).

vxNsr 12y ago

I have this and youtube history turned off because both use broken machine learning to try to interest me in nonsense I don't care about each time I search for something. Example: Yea I clicked on the "Oprah gives a car to everyone" video, but right now I'm trying to watch videos relevant to PHP security, and I don't care to see talkshow outtakes in the "related" sidebar.

SilasX 12y ago

"Today we reveal our latest feature, where you can get advance notice of how we'll blackmail you!"

pwenzel 12y ago

Kind of frustrated to see that Google's Search History feature was somehow re-enabled years after I disabled it.

guiseroom 12y ago
Mine too except I disabled it back in December.

pbreit 12y ago

I was pleased to see that it's password protected even though I know I was already logged in to "google". Does anyone know what the specific authentication rules are? I'm hoping my History session expires quickly.

joeyspn 12y ago

"Turn your history on" Me: No thanks, I disabled it long ago although we all know Google prob logs all of your IP activity (ad targeting and stuff)

kull 12y ago

Tell me your Top Sites and I will tell you who you are. My Top sites: 1. www.google.com 2. stackoverflow.com 3. wordpress.org 4. en.wikipedia.org 5. maps.google.com

borkabrak 12y ago

Wow, I use Google like, a lot.

_navaneethan 12y ago

I find it is very useful only.But i am wondering how it captures the search in github and searching in other sites? It is kinda bookmarks simplified

diimdeep 12y ago

Total Google searches: 63500 I wish there is good api to scrape search hist for analysis..

jacquesm 12y ago

Note that turning off your google history does absolutely nothing on googles side besides flipping one bit which stops you from having access to the data too. They're still collecting all your searches and associating them with you.

arck 12y ago

Thats useful as well as harmful! If I delete my browsing history from google search and chrome, does Google still backup these deleted history?