Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Remove Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 162 posts

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

#91

Post by adriand »

rplnt wrote: post #57
jhancock wrote: post #37

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?

Same for me. What helped is going there manually. Click on the gear icon and select Web History. You will be prompted to confirm login and then you'll proceed to web history page. I guess it's for security reasons so some malicious javascript won't grab your history (that easy).

It also works if you just google "web history" and click on the search result link, for whatever reason.

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

#92

Post by vetler »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #78
vetler wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

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.

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.

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

#93

Post by magicalist »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #78
vetler wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

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.

All you have to do is define "good for shareholders" in terms of setting up long-term growth (finding less-local optima). I feel like a lot of people here know that -- no one is going to be suing amazon over its very liberal return policy, because it keeps customers very happy. Yes it needs to end up being profitable, but not necessarily on a case-by-case basis. Some customers may end up being a net loss, but it's worth it for giving customers the overall feeling of safety in making a purchase from amazon.

Google actually explicitly put something like that in their IPO report ("focus on the user and all else will follow" as facebook helpfully brought up recently).

Now, Mark Zuckerberg also put similar statements in his letter to investors, and you could certainly make the case that these statements don't guarantee that the user will be put first, but investors have still been alerted that decisions they don't like may be made if they're deemed important for long term growth (google's voting shares scheme also helps in the regard).

For companies in general, though, the reality is that the judge will almost immediately throw these cases out unless there has been a major stumble (see, for instance, all the thrown out stupidity around demands for a documented and public Steve Jobs-succession plan). Even then you pretty much have to prove that the actions made were negligent without any kind of foreknowledge of how the market is going to behave. In other words, the only people that end up making money on these suits are the ones in cases where the company settles to avoid court time.

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

#94

Post by Gustomaximus »

lallysingh wrote: post #85
Gustomaximus wrote: post #63

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.

Positive they are Google ads.I'll try deleting the double click cookie as magicalist suggested.

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

#95

Post by m0tive »

m0tive wrote: post #77
aschobel wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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&#3... It shouldn't be too hard to write a script to scrape you're whole history...

Hacked this together to do the job:

https://gist.github.com/1884821

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

#96

Post by stordoff »

vetler wrote: post #92
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 in…

Could it be this article? http://hbr.org/2010/04/the-myth-of-shareholder-capitalism/ar...

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

#97

Post by stordoff »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #63

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…

Google associates demographics and interest categories with your account, which probably remain after you purge your search history.

You can manage them here: www.google.com/ads/preferences/

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

#98

Post by m0tive »

spullara wrote: post #36
dvdhsu wrote: post #24

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.

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

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620376

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

#99

Post by jonnathanson »

rpedroso wrote: post #4

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…

"or you have specific privacy needs/concerns"

With all due respect, this attitude really disturbs me. It's becoming very common these days: the implication that only deviants, criminals, off-the-grid wackos, and the anti-social have any real need for privacy.

No. I reject that premise. We all have a right to privacy, and we shouldn't have to give our reasons. (That's why it's privacy, after all!). We're quickly turning into a society whose members need to opt into privacy, and in which doing so is somehow stigmatized as abnormal.

I'm not suggesting that you are championing such a viewpoint, or that you even mean to suggest it. But that line of yours -- the idea that only a subset of us have privacy "needs" or "concerns" -- is troubling, and it reflects the rapidly encroaching, popular attitude of which I'm speaking.

[FWIW, I agree with you that Google's data-gathering isn't exactly a cause for immediate alarm. It's hardly taking us on some ominous path toward 1984. But I'm more concerned about the slow, steady erosion of privacy in the digital space, of which Google's activities are only one small part.]

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

#100

Post by ssn »

m0tive wrote: post #77
aschobel wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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&#3... It shouldn't be too hard to write a script to scrape you're whole history...

You can try this bookmarklet to download the full history: http://geeklad.com/updated-script-to-download-google-history
Post reply on HN