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 BlogRelated Links:
