Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Google Gets to Know You Better

by Terrence O'Brien on April 23, 2007 at 03:02 PM

Google Web History

Today Google turned a slightly scarier shade of Big Brother with its announcement of Web History, a new feature for the widely used Google Toolbar plug-in for Web browsers.

Similar to the history feature already a part of most browsers, Google's new tool indexes every single page you visit online for easy retrieval later should you want to view those pages again.

"Imagine being able to search over the full text of pages you've visited online and finding that one particular quote you remember reading somewhere months ago," Google's Payam Shodjai wrote today on the company's official blog. "Imagine always knowing exactly where you saw something online [...] Better yet, imagine having this wealth of information work for you to make searching for new information easier and faster."

Sounds great, but why all the fuss?

First of all, unlike your browser's history, which is stored on and accessible only from your PC, your Google Web History is stored on Google's servers. The advantage is that you can now access these pages from any PC in the world, but it also means that Google has 24/7 access to this same information, so you'd better hope you didn't accidentally land on some crazy website of ill-repute, or Big Brother may some day come knocking on your door.

Google already targets ads at Gmail users by scanning keywords within your Gmail e-mails. It won't be long before those ads are also following the trail of breadcrumbs we all leave behind each day as we traverse the Internet.

That said, don't get us wrong. We think Web History is a great idea that will prove incredibly useful to many people. We're just happy that it's something you must opt into, as opposed to it being turned on by default when you install Google Toolbar.

From The Official Google Blog


Related Links:


Tags: google, history, internet, web

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular