Dashboard Reveals What Google Knows About You 260
CWmike writes "Ever wonder exactly what Google knows about you? Google took a step today to answer that question with the unveiling of Google Dashboard, which is designed to let users see and control the copious amounts of data that Google has stored in its servers about them. 'Over the past 11 years, Google has focused on building innovative products for our users. Today, with hundreds of millions of people using those products around the world, we are very aware of the trust that you have placed in us, and our responsibility to protect your privacy and data,' Google said in a blog post today. 'In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we've built the Google Dashboard.' Dashboard is set up so that users can control the personal settings in each Google product that they use. Google said the tool supports more than 20 products, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts and Google Latitude. Consumer Watchdog said in a statement today that it applauds Google for giving users a single place to go to manage their data. But at the same tine, the group also came down hard on Google, contending that it needs to give users a vehicle for stopping the company from collecting any personal data."
Let's add a link. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Informative)
There are these new-fangled things called 'cookies', which get sent to Google every time you view one of their ads, which are on roughly 99.99% of web pages these days unless you block access to those servers.
Re:Dashboard reveals what they want to (Score:5, Informative)
It's the list of everything you searched through google when you were logged into your account, complete with dates. My backlog in there reached back to early 2007. Now I've deleted all entries and deactivated that "feature".
Re:Window dressing (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dashboard reveals what they want to (Score:5, Informative)
How about a link to the dashboard? (Score:5, Informative)
3 links, not a single one to the actual dashboard.
http://www.google.com/dashboard [google.com]
Re:Dashboard reveals what they want to (Score:4, Informative)
I don't have a link, but my recollection is that when their process was challenged (anonymizing after 30 days), they not only defended their right to do so, but also shortened the period to 15 days or some such.
Re:Let's add a link. (Score:2, Informative)
1. Go to google.cz,
2. klick on "Google.com in English" (http://www.google.com/ncr)
3. ???
4. Profit!!!1 (permanent cookie)
Solution (Score:5, Informative)
Cookies required
Re:Let's add a link. (Score:1, Informative)
There's a link, "Google.com in English" at the bottom of the Google.com page that brings up Google.com in English should you want your Google.com page in the English language and as such be able to use Google.com in English and therefore have English in your Google.com page.
Re:Let's add a link. (Score:3, Informative)
Google does appear to honor [google.com] the Accept-Language header setting (which you can set in Firefox [yfrog.com]).
For example, I just set my Firefox language setting to "German [de]", cleared my cookies and visited google.com. Lo and behold, Google.com in German [yfrog.com]. Interestingly, it didn't auto-redirect me to Google UK -- I'm in England right now -- although there's a link to Google UK at the bottom.
If you change browser settings like this, be sure to clear your cookies first -- sometimes existing cookies contain prefs about which site you want to go to, clearing them lets you start from a clean slate.
Re:Dashboard reveals what they want to (Score:5, Informative)
Probably because it's not enabled in the first place.
Try visiting http://www.google.com/history [google.com] and see if the page suggests that you turn the service on.
Re:Dashboard reveals what they want to (Score:3, Informative)
Not entirely accurate. [blogspot.com]
Google anonymizes data that is older than nine months, unless said data is tied to a Google account.
Re:Dashboard reveals what they want to (Score:2, Informative)