AllThingsD » search history

Google Will Help Us Watch Our Google Selves With a Monthly Activity Summary

Liz Gannes — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:02:55 +0000

Last month you may have seen a widely read tutorial about how to delete your personal Google history before the company’s new privacy policy took effect. For me at least, that triggered the first time I’d looked at my own personal search history, probably ever.

Today, Google is introducing an optional monthly email and personal “Account Activity” dashboard that should keep us a little more up-to-date with our Google selves on a regular basis. The feature summarizes usage trends from each of its user’s accounts on various Google products like Gmail, search and Latitude.

I’ve criticized Google for not doing more to explain and justify to users why they would want a unified Google account. Quantifying and visualizing user activity is a small step toward that. Two similar existing products are the Google Dashboard and ad preferences manager. None of the three products seems to be at all social or shareable or integrated with Google+.

A Google spokeswoman, who described Account Activity as “still pretty basic,” said the feature is now being rolled out globally to all Google Account users.

IE 8 Team Nearly Finished Copying Safari 10.3 Feature Set

John Paczkowski — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:46:43 +0000

Apple’s Safari browser has offered “private browsing” since 2005, Firefox since 2006 (via the Stealther extension), and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer may soon offer it as well. Earlier this week, Natya Nadella, senior VP of Microsoft’s search, portal and advertising platform group, said the company is planning to give IE 8 a privacy feature for erasing search histories and the other data that browsers often log automatically. Now iStartedSomething has discovered two trademark filings that may apply to the new feature. The first, for “Cleartracks,” describes a program for deleting search history after accessing Web sites. The second, “InPrivate,” disables a browser’s history and file-caching features, notifies users when their browsing is being monitored and controls access to the details of their browsing sessions.

Handy tools for when you’re researching a medical condition at work, shopping online for family Christmas presents, or you know, SURFING PORN, which is, after all, what the Internet was designed for. …

Microsoft to Jerry Seinfeld: Think Different

John Paczkowski — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:00:59 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]