Google’s new Web History feature does the job for you. Sites you have browsed, blogs you read, videos you’ve enjoyed once and now you can’t find all are now at your fingertips by just subscribing to this fresh Google feature. As Google will do the job for you by simply recording both your search and browsing history. The key world for this new online service is customisation.
Google’s ‘Search History’ has now been named to ‘Web History’ to offer subscribers customised services to tackle the vast amount of online information. In the past, Search History allowed users only to view past web search enquiries and results. Web History is a new tool with which the user can search and access quickly and easily the web pages he visited in the past or even view any previous online searches he did through Google’s search engine. Likewise, the subscriber can also see its web activity such as the most frequently visited sites or his top online searches just by using Google’s Web History. Lastly, Web History can also offer more advanced search results according to the users past searches and sites visited in the past
So, how does it work? The user must be registered to a Google account such as gmail and have a Google Toolbar installed in their browser with a PageRank enabled. The data will then be available every time the subscriber logs on to his account. For example, say you can’t recall the address of an interesting site you read once but you want to revisit-it happens to me regularly-all you have to do is go to the Web History and search for the site’s name; and you will come up with a list of all your previously visited websites which had this name. Web history can track and retrieve information literally about every site surfed on the Internet.
Despite of its new offering Google’s Web History has created a lot of debate about user’s privacy rights. In fact, it does sound a bit spooky that all your personal information can be now gathered in a single server allowing-hopefully only Google- to make use of them so as to enhance its customer’s experiance.
Google states that the data collected are available only to the user signed in to his Account, and reassures that these will not be given to any third party, as the company complies to the existing privacy policy. In Google’s words it seems that Web History does not change anything from what the company did in the past when collecting information from its subscriber’s Toolbars.
But then again isn’t it true that every single website on the Internet can collect information about us just by using cookies or IP adress tracking.
So why would it be different this time. The conclusions are yours…
2 comments:
There has been great debate recently about the personal data storage, and it seems that Web-History poses that issue again. Indeed that new tool (ohh my God...so many new Google tools...I've started loosing track...) seems like "Big Brother is watching you", and if marketers see the light from the Web-History nobody could assure you that your search history, will remain personal. But what you probably aren't aware of is that you can turn your web history off. So, you still have the chance to protect you data. What Google seems to lay great emphasis on, is the personalisation. "One-size-fits-all" isn't the case any more, and Google tries to take advantage of the new circumstances. I find the new tool really handy, as very often I can't remember where I found something, but I don't know if I'll be of the same opinion when I'll start working, if my boss will be able to see what I'm doing in the web while at work:-)
This is scaring the public and getting the up in arms simply because it is something new, but it isn't really.
The general public do not realise that their every click on the net is coded and recorded somewhere in cyberspace and to be honest neither did I until we did this class and I cam across the Stat Counter.
The only thing different here is that Google are advertising the fact and no other site does.
Debz
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