You’ll Shudder When You See What Google Knows About Your Web Searches

intego.com ^ | May 13th, 2015 | by Graham Cluley

[Swordmaker]

Google probably knows more about you than your mother, your partner, your boss... but chances are that you have no idea of just how much it knows.

Fortunately, there's an easy way to open your eyes to the scale of just what the world's most popular search engine knows about you, your interests and your peccadillos.

You may find yourself squirming when you realise Google never forgets what you've been typing into its search engine over the years, but, at least afterwards, you'll be able to do something about it.

First things first, take a deep breath and visit: https://history.google.com/history/

Chances are you will see one of two things.

The first possibility is that you might see what I saw when I tried it — a screen telling me that I had disabled web history and had specifically forbidden Google from collecting my search results.

That was a relief, I can tell you.

But what you're more likely to see is something like this:

In the case of the anonymous guinea pig who graciously allowed me to screen capture their web searching history, I would have been able to trawl back through over five years worth of web searches, learning about their medical complaints, old school friends they were curious about/stalking, and perhaps even their taste in porn.

[ShadowAce]

[ducttape45]

This is why I rarely ever use Google for searching for Internet items.

[Chickensoup]

Thank you I have used startpage for years and never saw that. Love the Startpage, the power without the commitment.

Sometimes I use dogpile, do not know whether the government traces those searches.

[GOPJ]

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