You only have a few days to shut off access to a very personal part of your online activity. Google changes its policy on March 1st, 2012. Learn how in this video.
How to Turn Off Your Web Search History Before Google’s New Privacy Policy Goes Into Effect
What Google Knows About You
If you have a Google account (a GMail account) and you search Google while logged in to that account, Google keeps track of what you search for in your “Google Web History”.
This search data can reveal pretty personal information about you like location, interests, age, religion, health concerns, business details, etc.
Google also collects data on you through its other products like YouTube and Google Plus.
If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with that other data, you need to remove all items from your Web History and turn off future Web History reporting.
What Happens on March 1st
Google’s new privacy policy will go into effect on March 1st – this will change how Google handles data it has collected on you before March 1st and into the future. After March 1st, this search data will no longer be “sealed off” from other parts of Google.
How to Seal Off Your Search History
In this video, I’ll show you how to change your Web History settings before the changes take effect.
Click on the video to start watching! If you can’t see the screen well, click on the full screen button in the lower right hand corner of the video player.
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“Pausing” your Web History will not prevent Google from collecting data and using it internally. Any of this information may be given to law enforcement as well.
When you disable or pause Web History, Google will partially anonymize the data after 18 months.
You’ll have to do this for each Google account you have.
See this link for more information on how to protect your search privacy.
Photo by Eric McGregor
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