The information Google collects through searches isn't tied to anything that could identify you unless you sign in. Google has no track record of selling this information to anyone and only uses it for targeted advertising or more relevant searches using your past history. Unless you know of a malicious reason they've used information tied to your account, it's all excessive worrying IMO. "Well they COULD do this or they COULD do that..." But they haven't and don't plan to. They're much better with your information and privacy than a credit card or cell phone company is and I don't see complaints about them. I am, however, obviously biased, so I may just be seeing Google through rose-colored glasses.
Some people don't want their ip's, uniquely identifiable computer and software information, cookies, let alone the actual search information stored in some company's databases for 5+ years. People get freaked out when the government is mentioned doing that. We seem to be more complacent if we think we're opting in.
And, in my opinion, those people wear the symbolical tinfoil hat. I realize they're out there, I just think they're being silly. Maybe I'll eat my words when Google f**ks me over?
did anyone else notice they took off the search bar at the bottom of the page?? So you save time with your initial search, but waste time by having to scroll up again to type a new search?
You can count me in the tinfoil hat crowd. I don't think Google will destroy me, but I am aware of the information it gets from me even if I can't imagine to what extent it'll use it for. Again, people have boundaries in privacy that many companies have been crossing (facebook ::cough:. And those same companies know this by making the disclosures a little harder to read or find. That doesn't seem tinfoil hattish to me if companies are deliberately avoiding the issue.
This would be a lot more fun if they didn't censor the results.... (I was at a conference a few years ago, where they had some sort of transcription thingie for the benefit of the many deaf attendees. Captions of the speeches were displayed on huge screens. The autocomplete function kept prompting "sucks" when "success" was typed in. So...as the director went on about the various programs and their successes for the year...the big screen beside her kept momentarily flashing that the programs sucked. That's pretty much all I remember from that conference. ).
This is technically not that hard, but it is smart. All they are doing is showing you what their engine has been doing behind the wall forever. DD
Yes it is, to have that kind of performance with that sort of volume data. It's rather amazing to me, and I work (performance tuning) with databases that have tables with billions of rows... a mere fraction of what Google no doubt stores and accesses.
WTF?!?!?!? You mean my credit card company knows what I buy and my social security number?!?!!?!?! THOSE BASTARDS!
^ I think it was the CEO of Yahoo that said CC companies can predict your likelihood of divorce with 80% accuracy based upon your purchasing behavior. That's what she said.
This should give search engine metrics a grand ol' time. I type "A". Is that a search? Or did I just pause to sneeze? lol. I can see it now : Searches Served by Google : 99.99999999999%
I turned this feature off. It's just annoying and my typing seems to pause a bit. As an aside- my Firefox search bar results have changed recently. Instead of giving me the results in a page where I can select Images, Maps, Video, etc at the top, those options are gone. This is only when I search within FF search bar. Anyone know how to fix this?
We knew you'd love it, coming from someone that wants 50 different ways to put someone else on ignore. :grin:
It doesn't help at all. I prefer to type what I am searching for. It seems that it doesn't save much time anyways..if anythng it adds time for me.
Google, like some have mentioned before, stores every single search query you have ever searched. If you think even if you're not signed in, they do still save your query and could find out through your computer's IP address. There was a show not too long ago that told the story of Google, and it mentioned many things like this. Also the government has been known to ask Google's help with finding terrorists/potential threats to the government. Google has actually been subpoenad many times in the past in special cases. So be careful what you search on Google.
Just delete that default Firefox Google search engine and use the first one off of this list: http://mycroft.mozdev.org/google-search-plugins.html
