David Coursey reports:
Google’s decision to expand personalized search to all users should be a wake-up call to those concerned about what the company knows about them and how it is used.
Now Google has begun using a cookie placed on users’ machines to track their search behavior and offer personalized recommendations, even when they are not logged into a Google account.
“Previously, we only offered Personalized Search for signed-in users, and only when they had Web History enabled on their Google Accounts. What we’re doing today is expanding Personalized Search so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well. This addition enables us to customize search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser,” wrote Google’s Bryan Horling, Software Engineer and Matthew Kulick, Product Manager.
Read more on PCWorld.
Oh great, now we can’t opt out of what we’d previously chosen to opt out of!
Now someone smart enough will subpoena Google’s records linked to my cookie.
Looks like it might be time to use an alternate search engine.