google search history

google search history

The Impact of Google Search History on Personal Privacy and Data Security

1. Introduction to Google Search History

It is common practice for websites to reveal sites that have been visited, searches that have been conducted on the internet, and sessions where users were accessing the services in an attempt to improve the quality and usefulness of the search engine and the services offered. This information is referred to as implicit, usage, or click-through data and contains potentially sensitive data. When this data is aggregated, data mining and statistical methods can be applied to the information to produce patterns on the preferences and habits of web users.

However, the desire and ease of recording this search information has brought into focus the moral and ethical concerns of subjects who wish to protect their privacy and data security from prying eyes. When viewed objectively, without instituting any privacy protection mechanisms, there are many sources of personal and private data available from search services such as Google.

Moreover, using the Google site, users are able to search for and access the information they require from any location at any time, if and when required. In practical terms, omnipotent search engines such as Google have totally integrated into the daily work and lives of large numbers of users around the world. It is now typical for a user or an organization to retain their search keywords and results in a file system.

Like most aspects of life, the nature of connecting, communicating, and conducting business using the internet, namely e-business and e-payment, is inherently linked to personal privacy and data security. Through the development of omnipotent search engines such as Google, ordinary users have been empowered to access and retrieve large amounts of data and information that was previously locked up in large databases.

Introduction

2. Privacy Concerns and Risks Associated with Google Search History

Currently, Google search for Firefox and IE, as on both browsers, users must make a special request to enjoy the privacy and secure an encrypted search history as part of the user profile. In the future, Google search for Safari, Chrome, and several other Google services, such as Bookmarks and Google Plus, may associate a user’s search history with his/her user account. The way this works is simple, any web user profile can be associated with any search history, the user identification process is simple and does not require any special software or manual intervention by the user. As on Firefox and other browsers, Firefox and all other Google services support the search link, which enables search history to be associated with the user’s user account on any computer or device. Since other browsers are associated with other Google services, search history to be associated with the user’s user account automatically. Because the search link is the first and only search history link that Google Search Building provides for an account, and because user profiles may not be created on search terms, this may not be a problem most users have. However, assuming that search engine users can control the behavior of the search history link via a “preference” setting for the user’s user profile, and Google offers a simple interface to search history, it seems reasonable to expect more problem-like examples of user control. As Google recognizes, enabling information to be associated with a user’s user account can increase the user’s search environment’s comfort while inadvertently revealing personally identifiable information. Specifically, the information could permit other users to deduce that the identity of the individual who performed the search activity is the person who must use the search environment.

Google search history, in general, can reveal a lot of information about an individual’s personal life to people who get access to that person’s search history. The search records created by Google for its users are held in a separate database than other user data, such as user personal profiles. This means other user records are not associated with search records at Google. However, individuals who can access both a user’s search history and user profile may be able to use this information to learn potentially embarrassing, private, dangerous, or secret information about any user on the internet, information not meant for dissemination by the individual. This has raised serious privacy and security concerns by privacy groups, the general public, the user community, and electronic advocates for personal protection because a piece of potentially a “user’s search history” holds certain sensitive, valuable, personal specificity that users of the current Google cannot control or access.

3. Data Security Measures and Best Practices for Managing Google Search History

Overview and review settings of services that use search history: Review your privacy settings for services that use search history to ensure your name is not provided as part of the general data. All the major services are run inside Google’s web server platform and are off-limits other than to Google SEO. They access user data in real time in web view and will have first-party cookie blocking by default. Overall security depends on user awareness and on the trust which lies within their use.

Use Google services that do not retain personal data: Use Chrome but do not use Chrome for search services. Use Google Maps but not map’s travel history services that make them more useful.

Opt out of applications that are modeled on search history behavior: Follow the opt-out procedures to ensure your search history is not used in behavioral profiles by removing your name and search history from anonymous aggregated analyses.

Be conscious of the observation impact of public Wi-Fi: Free has costs…

Use VOIP and anonymizing Wi-Fi – but there are many downsides: Avoid using VOIP or anonymizing Wi-Fi. There is a common myth in the information security space that the use of such systems makes you anonymous. Even in situations of telephone calls or if you use the web to access the anonymizing Wi-Fi, there is evidence that significant portions of these calls can be intercepted.

Avoid Web-anonymizers and proxy servers: You can forget about using web-anonymizers or proxy servers. There is no privacy when using such services; no guarantee that your web tracks cannot be traced back to you. Large-scale tracking eliminates privacy by making incognito tracking cost-effective.

Cookie management: Before explaining about cookies, we need to distinguish them. HTTP Cookie is a small piece of data that a server sends to the user’s web browser. The web browser may store it and send it back with the next request to the same server. Typically, it’s used to tell if two requests came from the same browser – to keep a user logged-in or to remember settings between routes. Use cookie management software to keep control over your cookies and simplify the process of managing them. Delete cookies from specific sites and domains by right-clicking on them in the Cookie Manager.

Configure private browsing settings in browsers: It will protect you from being tracked by websites as long as the browser itself is running using facilitate scripts to build detailed histories of your browsing. Open the options dialog, then the Privacy tab, then scroll down to History where you can adjust your settings.

Use incognito window (private window): Use Incognito (Chrome) or In Private Browsing (in history menu option) for Internet Explorer or Private Browsing in Safari reduces traceability of your information. You can see options of Private browsing under the tool button of the browser. It is a boon for shared computers. Your search history, pages visited, etc. are never saved.

Use HTTPS connection: HTTPS helps secure a site and protects your browser’s activity by encrypting it. Your data will not be monitored and hence can prevent it from being tracked. You can access encrypted search engines like. You can now search through a secure, encrypted SSL connection. You can turn the secure search on by clicking on the gear icon in the top right of the page and selecting “Search Settings”; in the section called “Location” you’ll find the option “Do not use https”.

Once you have gained a clear understanding about the impacts that Google search history has brought to personal privacy, you may wonder how to minimize the potential threats and secure your search history. In this part, data security measures and best practices will be covered.

4. Legal and Ethical Implications of Google Search History

The Supreme Court judgment on Gonzales v. Carhart, 2007, included very detailed (personal) search history data to support a particularly contentious decision. The FBI does not only have the authority to track the user if it can provide reasonable proof that it is illegal activity, but it can also monitor and access a user’s search history, which is simply data concerning user actions that are logged with their IP address. More to the point, the HTTP Protocol can also replay the log files with real-time proof of a user’s behavior in an online environment. The right to privacy is a legally binding right, and the safeguards are powerfully included in the Constitution. If it is a crime in the real world to snoop via electronic equipment, then why is it a legally binding right to snoop in the virtual world?

Legal and ethical questions are raised by Google’s ability to track and record emails and travel throughout the World Wide Web. This is also a problem within individual homes and other public locations using wireless networks. The incursion upon personal privacy is of concern to some attorneys and privacy advocates. Privacy and public opinion expert Ray Campbell writes that “in a free society, most people believe they have a right to read, speak, research, and browse the Internet in complete privacy. In reality, privacy on the Internet is an illusion.”

5. Conclusion and Recommendations for Users

This paper has presented anecdotal evidence and given a survey of the technical means available that anybody eager to protect their personally identifiable Google search history can use. There may still be opportunities for an attacker to succeed, but combining server logs of third parties and Google search history is more costly. Removing the connection is useful even if there may still be correlations between the words in the search history. Treat your search history with care. Use anonymization like Tor when you want to be anonymous. Regular deletion is a useful mitigation against future social and technological developments that may allow retroactively identified use. Google is now using encrypted connections by default and even while this helps decrease the risk of interception, it does not change the required level of trust in Google. On privacy, it only obfuscates the attacked links.

The increasing popularity of Google search history leaves the personal privacy of all users out in the open. Search history tied to an account profile is strongly linked to specific persons. Lack of that link leaves the behavioral sense of the words more widely descriptive than prescriptive. Abuse of personally identifiable search history could harm or profit the persons identified. This survey of publicly available information has shown that a number of precautions can be taken to lessen the dangers of Google search history connected with publicly known identity.