It's kinda cool to be able to look back at this stuff, I almost wish this were more integrated into the rest of Google so that I could rely on this (and for better awareness).
Just out of curiosity, how old are you, if you don't mind?
Your comment makes me assume you are very young or you work at Google. I don't mean that snarky, but your comment is a very different response than the rest of this thread.
35 here. DevOps software engineer. Also do not work for Google. I personally find this stuff fascinating and not particularly creepy. I'm far more concerned about credit reporting agencies and their data retention/sharing habits than I am with Google and my search history.
I'm not the one you are asking but I share the same thoughts on general search history.
I'm late 20s and I don't have any affiliation with Google.
It is nice because I can go back to 10 years ago and see what I searched, essentially taking me back to that time and loads of memories come back. "Why was I searching for cheat for this game? Oh yeah because this was the summer when I was playing with person X, Y and Z while doing A, B and C".
That's your interface to the data. Now imagine an NSA-like interface to the data. What is in there that you might not want future employers, dates, or others to know about the corners of your (and everyone's) life? Then imagine if your least preferred political candidate gets elected several times in a row and has access to all that data about potential "undesirables". Think of the journalists, the political volunteers, the victims of stalking or abuse, the LGBTQ, the women who had an abortion after being pressured into sex, and think of that information in the hands of a corrupt regime, or hacked by a hostile foreign power (or radical religious hacker group).
History features could be implemented in a way that keeps all sensitive data on devices you control. The only way to encourage more privacy-respecting implementations is to consider the downsides, especially for people less fortunate or less mainstream or at greater risk, and demand technology that gives us the features we want without harming the privacy of everyone else in the process.
Google could hold the data encrypted against a key you control and they do not. You'd have access to the data, and could control specifically when and to whom it's released.
It would continue to be backed up on Google's servers.
1. The snooping doesn't buy much ad placement benefit. That from Roberto Bayardo, Google advertising engineer.
2. The idea is not to cram ads down people's throughts all the time, but to not skeeve people off so much that you're not wwhere they go for purchase recommendations. If that means services which are mostly privacy-aware but that this means that you're where maps or shopping or search queries happen, that's a win.
A counter might be that Google's primary aim now isn't ads but AI and training data. I still think that not annoying or alarming people is preferable. Some data are better than no data, or intentionally distorted data, or massive regulatory burden.
Short answer: because privacy-promoting would be the better business choice.
Google got so big because it didn't "cram ads down people's throats all the time", I don't know why you think that.
Are you saying Google should drop Maps, Gmail, Drive and all the rest because they are not valuable from a business perspective? Their business is ads after all (today at least).
I actively avoid Maps and Gmail because of the ads (and surveillance). Similarly Google search itself.
Which means that when I am open to suggestion I am on other services.
By not maximising the short-term ad-impressions (or other short-term) metric, Google increases odds of being there when people are interested in its money-maker: quality suggestions for commercial goods and services.
They've probably lost you but their business model is not shrinking, at all. Far from it.
>>> By not maximising the short-term ad-impressions (or other short-term) metric, Google increases odds of being there when people are interested in its money-maker: quality suggestions for commercial goods and services
Google is already 18 yo, they are clearly not playing the short term game.
And they are offering quality suggestions for commercial goods and services. People are arguing whether or not they collect too much data for said services, but I haven't heard anyone complain that their ads are obtrusive. Including yourself.
I spend my days maintaining a few years of data at work. Making sure it's backed up, always accessible.
I do not want to do that in my off time.
I know "do it locally" is often repeated here, but do you really expect a local solution to be able to get this kind of information and keep it safe, secure, and constantly working for this long? And how much time, money, and effort should you spend maintaining such a solution?
I have data in my Google account going back 10 years! That's impressive as hell!
I am the same poster who posted above (liking the data being there). I was just pointing out that is "is" possible to do it without google handling it.
Personally I actually do track some "hourly" data, maybe 2-3 hours in total to set it up and it's running for 2-3 years. I suppose you could add some time to run it through some encryption software and put it in Dropbox without too much of a hassle.
Well, I'm over forty, and I think this sort of thing is awesome, and very useful. I love being able to see where I was on a business trip, work out where that interesting shop I stopped at but forgot to write down the name of was or see where I was drinking with friends the night before (stayed in one location from 22h00 to 03h30, then looks like I got a taxi home, that must be it!) but was too busy enjoying myself to make a note of the bar's location...
And, as people get older and their biological memory starts to suffer, this sort of external memory jogging feature will only get more and more useful, I suspect.
