
Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect - bootload
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/how-remove-your-google-search-history-googles-new-privacy-policy-takes-effect
======
rpedroso
The official title of the article is "How to Remove Your Google Search History
Before Google's New Privacy Policy Takes Effect", and the writing itself is
much more neutral than this submission title.

I'm still not sure why people are afraid of Google's new privacy policy. I
understand that there are people who have specific privacy needs, but outside
that scope I doubt you have anything to worry about.

It's doubtful at best that Google's "log" of you would become compromised
(unless your personal account were compromised, but then this would have been
a problem anyways!). It also isn't the case that some Google employee is
reading row after row of Google's customer DB snooping on individuals.

Google isn't some unified entity; your data is being manipulated by
advertising algorithms to tailor ads for you. Unless you care about a CPU
"knowing" your secrets, or you have specific privacy needs/concerns, none of
this is a problem.

Maybe someone can surprise me with some good reasons to be concerned, but
until then I am trusting Google.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
My concern is that someone out there is accumulating a huge amount of very
personal information about me. It happens to be a corporation that has a legal
obligation not to me but to its shareholders and that obligation is to
maximise profit. It also has a legal obligation to the US government and the
US courts, a government I have no right to elect and a legal system I cannot
afford.

And here's my point: I simply cannot know or control what profit maximising
ideas they may come up with in the future or what kinds of ideas politicians
may deem necessary in order to win an election.

Some say that it will always be more profitable for Google to "respect my
privacy". The problem is that the meaning of "respect my privacy" is a matter
of fast changing attitudes. It's not my personal privacy they need to be
concerned about, it's what the vast majority of their users will passively
accept.

Their privacy policy says they can do anything with my data to create new
services and improve existing ones. That means they can do anything. Full
stop.

The reason why I'm more concerned about their new privacy policy than about
the old one is that lots of small piles of information are less dangerous than
one big pile of information, exactly for the reason they are creating it: The
value of accumulated information is more than the sum of its parts.

The conclusions that can be drawn from that combined dataset are a lot more
reliable and robust. Right now, much of the data that is out there about us is
basically garbage and everyone knows it. No one can know if it means anything
that I supposedly visited this or that site. But if they can also analyse what
I searched for, what my emails are about, what blogs I read, which people I
communicate with, etc, they can learn something about my intentions, not just
about my actions and they can throw out the garbage.

I don't want all my intentions to be known or to be knowable to anyone on
earth because I cannot know or control the intentions of those wanting to know
my intentions. It's a onesided shift of power away from me and I can never
take it back.

Once the data has become so much more reliable and the conclusions so much
more robust, the desire to use that information for all kinds of new purposes
will grow accordingly. The pressure on Google to use that knowledge to
increase profit will grow. The incentive for criminals to steal the data will
grow. The pressure on governments to proactively spy on everyone to prevent
this or that type of crime will grow.

This is not me saying "Google has turned evil". It's just a recognition of an
inevitable social and economic dynamic ensuing from the possibilities that
well intregrated, high quality, sets of personal data provide.

I know more than the vast majority of people about data analysis and hence I
will not delegate what "respecting my privacy" means to that majority of
passive Google (or Faceboook, ...) users.

~~~
vetler
> It happens to be a corporation that has a legal obligation not to me but to
> its shareholders and that obligation is to maximise profit.

That's a myth. I belived it was true until someone here on HN linked to a
Harvard Business Review article debunking it. Unfortunately I can't find the
article, but here's a blog post discussing the issue:
[http://truthonthemarket.com/2010/07/27/the-shareholder-
wealt...](http://truthonthemarket.com/2010/07/27/the-shareholder-wealth-
maximization-myth/)

~~~
fauigerzigerk
This article is all about errors that a management team could make, but I'm
talking about their intentions. Google's management team cannot intentionally
pursue goals that are bad for shareholders.

I doubt that it would be legal to do so, but I'm not a lawyer, so suffice it
to say that it's not practical because they would be removed from their
management positions very quickly.

~~~
vetler
Point taken.

It just irks me that people often use the myth that they must maximise
shareholder profits _at all cost_ as a reason for why companies act evil. The
Harvard Business Review article, that a still can't find unfortunately, also
talked about how this myth is pervasive in management circles, and leads to
bad business practices and corporations being socially unresponsible. I got
the impression that you were insinuating this.

~~~
stordoff
Could it be this article? [http://hbr.org/2010/04/the-myth-of-shareholder-
capitalism/ar...](http://hbr.org/2010/04/the-myth-of-shareholder-
capitalism/ar/1)

------
jellicle
I'm pretty sure EFF is wrong here. Google's Web History is basically a public
version of your search history. You can turn on or off whether you want Google
to rub your face in its knowledge about you. But it retains that knowledge
even if you turn off the rub-in-your-face personalization part.

Google retains a complete history of your interactions with them, which is not
subject to this Web History setting, not deletable, not removable, and will be
shared across its properties.

Short reply: This doesn't remove Google's search history of your searches at
all.

~~~
jacquesm
Interesting.

Can you prove that?

If so, this could be a very hot potato.

If google states "Your web history is currently empty" and "web history is
paused" but they continue to track your searches in a way that is tied to your
identity then I think they're in breach of several laws.

They could chose to withold the ability to disable tracking. But by giving you
the impression that they're not tracking you I think they're definitely across
the line if they continue to track you in spite of that.

> Google retains a complete history of your interactions with them, which is
> not subject to this Web History setting, not deletable, not removable, and
> will be shared across its properties.

Is a pretty heavy accusation to make without hard proof. And if it turns out
to be true I'd hate to be the one to have to explain to the EU regulatory body
how "your search history is empty" can co-exist with "we have a complete
history of your activity". If it is a history on my activity then my search
history can not be empty and if it is empty then google should no longer have
it either.

~~~
jellicle
Uh, this is not a secret. Google says specifically that web history is a way
to personalize your search results, nothing more. Web history is an add-on to
Google's normal tracking.

"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."

This refers you to the main privacy policy, which says very clearly that
Google stores every request you make along with cookies that uniquely identify
your account.

<http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/>

Web History is an add-on tracking system. Google does not permit opting-out of
Google's regular tracking system, which at one point stored every request you
had ever made to any Google server, but which I think now may be semi-
anonymized after a couple of years, if I remember their changing policies
correctly. Although, the Privacy Policy makes no such promise, so perhaps they
do still keep every request ever made in Google's existence. Google absolutely
has a perfect record of every interaction you've had with them for the past
year or two. Even if Web History is "off".

~~~
jacquesm
I'm sorry but I distinctly got the impression that 'opting out' of the search
history feature meant that google would not be saving my search history and
I'm quite surprised that this is not the case.

It is of course possible that I'm alone in this but somehow I doubt that.

~~~
coderdude
I'm surprised that you would come to that conclusion. I would think that most
"mega power-users" (as I'm now labeling you :) would simply assume that they
were turning off some kind of public-facing display of their search history,
and that you were not opting out of their ability to target ads at you with
greater precision.

I would not be surprised if many people got the same impression.

~~~
jacquesm
I think what blindsided me was a combination of two factors: (1) I want to
believe that google tries to be the 'good guy', (2) the specific wording of
the history feature which states that "Get results and recommendations that
are tailored to your preferences.", as in "before you enable this feature we
can not do that". That feels like an opt-in.

The fact that it is only available to logged in users and that - as far as I
can see - it is not public facing, but just to you specifically further
increased that expectation.

~~~
coderdude
Yeah, I can see now why it would give off that impression. That feature is
going to give them so many issues in the future. I wouldn't be surprised to
hear about its removal one day.

~~~
joelhaus
> "Google maintains a separate logs system"

Could the difference be that Google associates data with your Google account
if you have Web History turned on, but only uses IP addresses in their "logs
system"?

If this was the case, IMHO, it would be consistent enough with expectations.

~~~
coderdude
Based on Google's "What Google knows about you" page[1] I would have to
conclude that their logs associate your search behavior with your account
either way.

[1] <https://www.google.com/settings/ads/onweb/>

~~~
magicalist
That's the doubleclick cookie personalization, which they aren't allowed to
tie to your account based on the doubleclick acquisition agreement (which is
why "on the web" and "on search and gmail" are separate and why if you go in
an incognito window or block doubleclick cookies it will say it has nothing on
you).

<http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/>

------
potatolicious
I for one am glad that Google at least provides this option. I'm sure if
Facebook, Zynga, or many of the current startup psoter-boys would _not_ ,
given the same opportunity.

------
psadauskas
Someone should write a Firefox plugin to allow people to anonymously exchange
google cookies, like you can with the grocery store club cards.

~~~
dhbanes
<http://www.googlesharing.net/>

~~~
SquareWheel
It sounds good in concept, but I'm concerned that somebody searching for child
pornography or similar could be associated with myself. I have the same fear
of running a TOR exit node.

~~~
ehsanu1
It gives you plausible deniability, which is the point. Nobody can prove you
really did those searches (though you can't prove the converse either).

~~~
knowtheory
It might give you plausible deniability in front of a jury (emphasis on
_might_ ), but that says nothing about assumptions or biases made by law
enforcement officials or prosecutors.

~~~
swombat
Yes, plausible deniability is pretty useless _after_ the police have arrested
you at 6am in your home after bashing down your door, and all your neighbours
have found out that you've been accused of being a pedophile.

------
MengYuanLong
I never realized you could access your search data history. It was really
fascinating to see the different visualizations including my search
concentration by hour and days of the week.

That said, even as a non-statistician, it wasn't hard to imagine the amount of
information Google could infer by focusing on an individual. I had a data set
exceeding 50k searches with the resulting click-throughs on my account. (Plus,
they can of course leverage their massive db to help eliminate anomalies like
Whitney Houston)

In addition to the basics like big item purchase history, hobbies, and
problems (e.g. sickness); I wouldn't be surprised if Google could predict my
relationship status and sexual preferences.

Custom search results are great, but I'm extremely happy to have been given
the option to delete that profile. If anything, it is the single largest
factor pushing back to Firefox and possibly DuckDuckGo.

~~~
mike-cardwell
Google makes money from your ignorance. They could put a "Disable all
Tracking" button in the black bar at the top of all Google properties, but
their business model relies on the majority of people not knowing they're
being tracked, or not caring enough to go looking into how to disable it.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Some people (like me) just don't mind. Tracking is not inherently bad, and
they use that data to provide some value for users. If you had to inform
everyone and provide opt-ins for every single feature that _someone out there_
might not like, nothing would ever be done on the Internet.

Also, running analysis on this kind of data must be pure awesomeness, from
scientist's point of view ;).

~~~
lbolla
Remember that "if you're not paying for it, you're the product".

[http://lifehacker.com/5697167/if-youre-not-paying-for-it-
you...](http://lifehacker.com/5697167/if-youre-not-paying-for-it-youre-the-
product)

------
aschobel
Is there a way to export the search history?

I have close to 45k searches over 7 years, would love to keep that data and
mine it myself.

~~~
bnr
You can export it as a feed:
[http://www.google.com/history/lookup?q=&output=rss&n...](http://www.google.com/history/lookup?q=&output=rss&num=1000)

~~~
aschobel
Thanks, it's only exporting 922 searches for me.

Increasing the num=100000 argument doesn't seem to impact this limit.

One would think that your search history should be a core part of their data
liberation effort.

~~~
m0tive
You can specify the date to export, so could step back exporting batches until
you've got everything.

[https://www.google.com/history/lookup?month=11&day=30...](https://www.google.com/history/lookup?month=11&day=30&yr=2008&output=rss&num=9999)

It shouldn't be too hard to write a script to scrape you're whole history...

~~~
m0tive
Hacked this together to do the job:

<https://gist.github.com/1884821>

~~~
oxxx
Doesn't work for me:

export.rb:1:in `require': no such file to load -- mechanize (LoadError) from
export.rb:1

edit: nvm, installed libwww-mechanize-ruby and it's working fine.

------
jhancock
When I go to <https://google.com/history> while logged into my google mail
account, I get redirected to <https://www.google.com/>

The redirected Google home page clearly shows me as logged in. Am I doing it
wrong?

~~~
arto
Likewise for me with the Google Apps account I'm usually signed in as when
doing searches.

Going to the non-SSL page <http://google.com/history> (as suggested by someone
here) doesn't result in the redirect, but gives the message "Web History is
not available for mydomain.com."

As usual, it seems that Google Apps users are in a different (lower) class
when it comes to Google functionality.

~~~
basseq
I had to sign out of my Apps account and sign in with my Gmail account.
Switching accounts didn't seem to work. I'm assuming (perhaps naively) that
Google is synthesizing all my history into that one "primary" account.

I hate that Google Apps accounts are second-class citizens. Especially knowing
that you can pay for corporate accounts... seems backwards.

------
CodeMage
After doing what EFF recommended, the Web History is "paused" indefinitely. If
you want to opt out of the service completely, you can use the following URL:

<https://www.google.com/accounts/DeleteService?service=hist>

------
dvdhsu
As far as I know, Google Takeout doesn't support Web History. If they
supported it, I'd take out my search history in a heartbeat.

As it stands now, I do sometimes refer back to it, but I don't think it's
worth having it if it means giving up the information to advertisers as well.

~~~
spullara
I've got 44k searches I would like to export but their RSS feed only goes back
a month for me.

~~~
m0tive
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620376>

------
rd108
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?

~~~
greyman
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
"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)

------
Gustomaximus
I'm not convinced this works as it should. I turned of history a while back
and have since repeated "remove all history". But I still get these ads
related to searches and email that is too obscure to be co-incidence - e.g.
Lately I get shown ads (sometimes multiple times daily) for "Foreign SIM
cards" as I googled this about a month ago. Especially on Youtube. Anyone else
notice this who has turned off their web history?

~~~
lallysingh
Are you sure they're Google Ads? If you followed a link from the search
results, and that link had ads from another search network, that other network
would've associated you with that search term.

~~~
magicalist
or the same scenario, but with doubleclick ads. The FTC(?) agreement for
acquiring doubleclick included a clause that they can't mix google account
information and doubleclick logging, but as parent said, the sites you clicked
through may have had doubleclick ads and associated that topic (or their brand
specifically) with your doubleclick cookie. Deleting it should reset it.

------
morsch
I knew about the search history, but apparently a number of people didn't.
This makes me wonder: Are there any other semi-hidden Google services which I
can "clean out"?

~~~
Zirro
If you have a YouTube-account:

<http://www.youtube.com/my_history>

<http://www.youtube.com/my_search_history>

------
jsz0
There are probably better ways of doing this but I just use Chrome now
exclusively for Google services. I don't login to Google on my primary browser
anymore. I'm hoping this will limit their stalking a bit. I don't mind if they
read my mail since that's the price I pay for using the service but I'm
getting a little paranoid about the other things they might be doing. Better
to keep it sandboxed away from the rest of my browsing.

------
RyanMcGreal
I always use the following link to search google:

<https://encrypted.google.com/?pws=0>

And I have search history turned off.

------
simon
I use three browsers. Firefox for general browsing (technology and theology),
Chromium for Gmail and Facebook, and Opera for blogs.

I figure that keeping Google and Facebook in their own little prison should
help greatly with privacy.

I use DDG for searching whenever possible.

Not so much to hide things (as a pastor I got used to being watched 24x7 years
ago), but just to preserve what little privacy I have left.

~~~
hackernews
I've tried this but find it to quite a pain to remember what browser I should
be looking at what in.

What I want is a browser where I can be logged into Google, and any link I
click will open that link in my "private" (not logged into Google) browser.
Same with Facebook, Twitter, etc.

So I've started developing XUL apps to run each in their own sandbox.

~~~
simon
I agree that it could get tedious, but I'm compartmentalized (not OCD ;-)
enough in how I do things, that it has worked well for me so far.

Your XUL apps approach sounds interesting. Can you offer any pointers on what
you do and how others could do it too?

~~~
hackernews
It's pretty simple right now. I only spent an hour or so on it and will post
it to GitHub when I get some more time to iron out a few kinks.

Basically you open the XUL app for the service you want to access. It acts as
a chromeless firefox browser and intercepts any links you click. If it's an
external link it opens it in your default browser where you wouldn't be logged
into google preserving a bit of anonymity.

~~~
simon
Thanks.

I also found this link
<http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/tutorials/x-xulintro/> after a little
searching. I'll try it out.

------
shashashasha
Wow, did not know that this existed. Now I know that across 11 thousand
searches on Google, AAPL was my top search, and that my search activity spikes
on Mondays and declines through the rest of the week: <http://o7.no/wiL2jx>

------
ontoillogical
I use google apps for domains and I get the following message: "Web History is
not available for MY_DOMAIN. Learn more about Google products you can use with
MY_EMAIL."

Is Google collecting this data and not giving me the option to turn it off, or
are they not collecting the data?

~~~
bnr
If it's not enabled, the logs are not associated with your account. You could
enable the service in the apps control panel (assuming you're the
administrator) and check for yourself, though.

------
facorreia
Interesting. Although I'm not sure I care if Google applications have access
to information about my location, interests, age, sexual orientation,
religion, health concerns. I'm a 42, male, married, Catholic software
developer living in Brazil.

------
esalazar
Looks like government doesn't like either,
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020391830457723...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203918304577239793006074440.html)

------
quink
youtube.com doesn't have any obvious method of removing of past watched videos
and is even more nefarious than Google will probably ever be (before March
1st, 2012 at least) about tracking visitors.

Additionally, YouTube has become pretty much just a branch of the RIAA and
MPAA and their local equivalents, and I'd rather burn down my house than allow
them access to my data.

That's why I've been blocking YouTube from setting cookies on my computer, and
that's why other people should do too.

~~~
Zirro
<http://www.youtube.com/my_history>

<http://www.youtube.com/my_search_history>

I am not saying that the average user knows about them, though, but they're
not that hard to find.

(Also, since you seem to talk about YouTube and Google as separate companies:
They're not. Google owns YouTube and their new policy applies there as well.)

------
thedangler
I never had it turned on in the first place.

------
nemoniac
Show of hands:

Who is actually going to do this? Who isn't?

~~~
ezyang
I've just done so, and I intend on keeping Web History turned off. I simply do
not derive enough benefit from having this data around for myself (when's the
last time you benefited from Web History), and unlike other permanent data
such as G+ posts, comments etc I do not self-censor searches that I would like
to conduct, so I find it very plausible that someone with more processing
power than me could find out more about me than I intend.

~~~
larister
I was just about to and then realised that I had turned it off a while ago.
The fact that I had completely forgotten it shows that I don't need this data.

However, it's also not something I'm hugely concerned about; as others have
said the main danger is from some unscrupulous individual gaining access to
your account. In terms of Google having access to my data, I would imagine my
data will never be seen by human eyes. Having said that, one does need to
remember the inherent permanence of data on the internet, as Facebook's
timeline has shown sometimes your data can surface in unexpected ways.

~~~
facorreia
You don't need it, but it makes search matching more efficient for the people
that have it on.

------
guynamedloren
When somebody's life is horribly dismembered as a result of Google's _insane_
privacy policy (new or old), please let me know. I'll start thinking about
privacy and necessary safety measures at that point.

Until then, please stop whining about privacy, because frankly, I just don't
see how any of this really matters. My life has yet to be negatively impacted
by Google and I don't foresee it happening in the near future.

~~~
crockstar
To be fair, I haven't seen a load of claims about how this is "insane" or
"horrible" within the context of this article. It just provides a useful
instruction as to how those that wish to opt-out, may do so.

It's fine that you don't see how this matters but it does matter to some and
having the choice and understanding how to exercise that choice is essential.

~~~
guynamedloren
Apologies. I wasn't referring to this article in particular, but the hype in
general over Google's changing privacy policies.

~~~
crockstar
Fair enough. I do get your point - people seem to go mad about privacy in
general. It does sometimes feel (to me) like people aren't as bothered about
it with Google as they are with Apple, Amazon or Facebook, but maybe that's
just me.

No need to apologise, wasn't trying to call you out or anything, just felt
like this was one of the few posts I've read that doesn't whine too much about
it.

------
downx3
Can someone possibly paraphrase the new privacy policy? Or at least point out
significant changes please.

------
da5e
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/>

------
gildur
The web history seem to have been off for me by default.

------
shareme
The issue is not with start-ups or established players its with US Congress
and the DOJ who have consistently used 911 to over-reach to control things so
that they do not have to hear dissent. Sort of what the standard Russian
citizen experiences on a daily basis, bbut they are not alone in that
experience.

Thus, when did we become a less free 'Third World Country'?

My apologies to citizens in Third World countries as I lack the vocab early
this morning to express it in a different way.

------
gcb
when i go to that page with my spam account, which i'm logged in by mistake
when i do most of my searches anyway, i get one screen asking to enable web
history, with a button saying "no thanks". and i never get to the calendar
screen.

with my de facto account, it shows the calendar. and there's no way i can find
a way to that "no thanks" button

