Google Search has bigger privacy issues. IP Addresses are anonymized after 9 months, but your search history is stored forever in anonymized form. If you have ever searched for yourself on Google, or for a unique set of information that can identify you as the origin of your searches, then you have to trust Google's security team and future lawmakers to keep your information private.
Yes, most people don't care, and I'm not any better. I don't have anything incriminating or too embarrassing in my search history, so I use Google and grit my teeth whenever privacy comes up. I tried DuckDuckGo for a week, but I eventually fell back to Google.
I agree that I could care less about all of this stuff, it's the search data that matters. Imagine taking a look at a month of someone's search data, it would be revealing (it might even be revealing to look back over years of your own search history).
But as for the question of forever anonymization I think you have misunderstood:
The data will not be traceable back to a single computer or user. The link between searches is the IP address, and it would be pretty hard to identify a single IP address without the final two octets (ie 255.255.255.255 -> 255.255). It definitely wouldn't be impossible (nothing is), but I would bet it would be within the level of difficulty that many other more privacy-violating things would.
Furthermore, my ISP changes my IP address very frequently (my guess would be about every 48 hours), and even if it was static, I would not have had the same IP for a very long time (moved frequently, etc).
The cookie is the only link between the IP addresses, once you've ambiguated the IP's it's pretty hard to connect the numerous IPs one person would have to people.
The sources you submitted were not very explanatory and have nothing to do with Google, respectively.
You are mostly correct. According to an Ars Technica article from last year [1]:
* Google anonymizes the last octect of your IP address after 9 months. (So there are 254 possible IP addresses for each search.)
* The search cookie is kept intact for 36 months (3 years).
When I posted before, I incorrectly remembered reading that the search cookie is stored forever. Thanks for catching my mistake.
Edit: Regarding the sources, I think that Google's FAQ deliberately skimps on the details. I posted the AOL link because it is a good example of what can happen when search data is leaked.
am I missing something with that 36 months? from the ars article:
"After 18 months, Google anonymizes the unique cookie data stored in these logs."
a 2.5 year old searchengineland article also says they use a hash function using keys that are discarded every day, which means that search streams will be 24 hours long apiece:
The other data stored with your searches could be way easier to track you from than your IP address: http://panopticlick.eff.org/
It would (theoretically) be easy to determine which searches are all by the same person using data like that, and then you just have to find one of those searches that reveals their identity.
> Furthermore, my ISP changes my IP address very frequently (my guess would be about every 48 hours), and even if it was static, I would not have had the same IP for a very long time (moved frequently, etc).
This isn't true for everyone. I have cable internet from Time Warner, and my theoretically "dynamic" address hasn't changed in at least a year.
Imagine taking a look at a month of someone's search data, it would be revealing
Please explain to me how would any random person get that? Actually how would anyone get that data if you have not already done something which throws suspicion on you.
I figure in the far future some giant AI will probably be reading the data, for anthropological or historical reasons. Reconstructing all our lives as well as it can to understand us better, or maybe out of boredom. So whenever I'm going to do some really off-the-wall searches, just to see what there is out there on the web, or because of some strange conversation at the pub, I search first for something like "these next few aren't really about me".
What about bing? If they have better privacy, then they can use it as a selling point to capture market share. A quick google search on google vs bing privacy policy seems to favor bing. I have the disconnect chrome extension to block google tracking.
I have Disconnect and there will still a lot of categories. They seem to direct you to the IBA extension to permanently opt out. There's another that supposedly works on more sites, but last time I tried it, it and Disconnect got into a race and crashed Chrome immediately, even after restarting it several times.
Funny... my listed interests are in business and tech (true), and I've been identified as a male (not true). From Google: "Based on the websites you've visited, we think you're interested in topics that mostly interest men." Ouch!
Google Ads Preferences
Cookies are disabled
Your browser's cookies seem to be disabled. Ads Preferences will not work until you enable cookies in your browser. How do I enable cookies?
This is why it should be off by default and opt-in only.
In Firefox: Humor, Venture Capital, Computers & Electronics, Handhelds & Mobile Devices, Internet Software, Operating Systems - Mac OS, Currencies & Foreign Exchange, Smart Phones, Technology News, Dictionaries & Encyclopedias.
In Chrome: Movie Reference, Music & Audio, Rock Music, Online Video.
As my main browser I use Firefox, without Flash plug-in. When I need to view video, I open Chrome, which has Flash built-in. That explains why the information from the two Google cookies differ so much.
I have no cookie and I don't want one :) they also complain that I don't let them execute JavaScript in my browser:
You cannot view or edit interests when you do not have an 'id' cookie. Opt-in to get a cookie. JavaScript is disabled. Enable JavaScript to be able to edit your preferences.
"No interest categories are associated with your ads preferences so far."
I use AdBlockPlus, Ghostery and OptimizeGoogle in FF to reduce the amount of crap I get served, as well as to rewrite e.g. Google search results to remove their link tracking.
Am I the only one where it says to Opt In instead of Opt out by default? It don't have any categories for me even after Opting in. I'm signed into my account. Adbllock Plus working great?
It seems to be machine-dependent? I remember opting out a while back at work, but my mobile phone definitely shows me a profile, albeit one that isn't totally accurate.
In any case, you guys should also checkout Bynamite. They've got this interesting mission to give users more control over what advertisers see. I'm all for that not just from a privacy standpoint, but also from a relevancy one.
I read the title of this post as a cliffhanger, promising a shocking ending, but it doesn't really do it for me. I'd rather have them show me relevant ads than random ones, personally. I opted out for a while but found opting in to be the better experience for me. To each their own, I guess.
I wonder how much of that is due to a simple misinterpretation of some of the sites you visit. For example, if the fairly recent article on Google's "beatbox" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1952356) and my subsequent searches led to my purported interest in "Arts & Entertainment - Music & Audio - Urban & Hip-Hop - Rap & Hip-Hop".
Same URL gives me different results on the phone and on the desktop. Apparently Google doesn't link them? I'm using the same GMail-Account on both though.
I do use google as my primary as well. This is a fairly new laptop, and while I've googled quite a bit I've never done any sort of opting out. Maybe it helps that I'm not logged in to my Google account?
according to http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy/ads/ the "interest categories" are based on the sites you actually visit that have doubleclick ads, not from search terms (though there's an obvious correlation between the two, I suppose).
Yes, most people don't care, and I'm not any better. I don't have anything incriminating or too embarrassing in my search history, so I use Google and grit my teeth whenever privacy comes up. I tried DuckDuckGo for a week, but I eventually fell back to Google.
Sources and relevant links:
http://www.google.com/privacy/faq.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_scandal