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Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

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Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#82
post #81

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"?

If you have a YouTube-account:

http://www.youtube.com/my_history

http://www.youtube.com/my_search_history

Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#83
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

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.

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.

Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#85

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 his…

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.

Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#87
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

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.

To go with what the sibling poster said: when you're so much as accused of paedophilia in this country, any sort of real expectation of due process or rational justice goes to shit. Plausible deniability won't be of much help.

Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#88

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 his…

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.

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.

Re: Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

#90
post #6

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…

without going back to read the privacy policy again, I believe a big difference is that normal search logs are anonymized after a certain amount of time, whereas search history is kept as long as it's enabled, I assume.

Sometimes I get the feeling in all the discussions around google's new privacy policy that I'm one of the few people around here that bothered to actually read it :)

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