Google Web History - Minority Report In the Making

Google has launched Google Web History, a service that if enabled will keep track of your searches and will present you with stats about your top queries, top sites, top clicks and other such things.

The web history is a really powerful tool, that will once again worry privacy advocates who already fear that Google knows alot about us. The situation is worsened by the recent acquisition of DoubleClick, a search advertisement company that uses cookies extensively to serve relevant and targeted ads and in the process of doing so gathers valuable data about users. Just a glance of web search history is enough to reveal extremely important information about the personality and preferences of the person. Tie this up with IP and you will know in what part of the world he lives. Bundle it with email, office documents, instant messages (GTalk) and browser history itself-thanks to Google toolbar which was recently enhanced, and you might even glean into the thought processes of the person. Mass adoption of this service will transform Google into an almost perfect Search Engine that will know exactly what a user meant when he searched for a specific keyword. Not to mention a perfect Advertisement Engine as well that might be serving us ads and recommendations about products that we terribly needed, but never really thought of having.

The User Interface is so neat and simple, that it makes everything look so obvious. The history is presented in a timeline, with the ability to dig deeper into search histories for specific domains like web, images, news, videos, and maps. To your utmost surprise, they are even tracking the Adsense ads you clicked. Some Google properties however are missing like-Google Apps, Blogger, Reader, Picasa, and searches done using Google Desktop Search.

Google has also provided ample controls to manage what should remain in history and what not. Users can delete the bits and pieces that reveal their dark side, and can also pause the web history anytime they want for as long as they want.

Another interesting feature in the service is “trends“, which initially debuted in Google Reader. Users could see their search trends and know about their monthly, daily and hourly search activity. A list of top search queries, top sites visited, and top clicks, from the last week, month, year, or entire life, could also be viewed.

With the release of this service, Google has made a deliberate and serious push into the personal lives of its users, on the shiny premise of trying to be a relevant search engine. Google does not disclose for how long it keeps data about its users on its servers, but the terms and conditions do specify that they will keep it on their servers for at least 30 years. A similar service from Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL or IAC would have triggered a serious community backlash.