Google adds personalized Web History. But what about your privacy?

Here’s what the Offical Google Blog says about Web History:

Web History lets you look back in time, revisit the sites you’ve browsed, and search over the full text of pages you’ve seen. It’s your slice of the web, at your fingertips.

You will need a Google Account and the Google Toolbar with PageRank enabled. Google uses the Toolbar to associate the pages you visit with your Google Account, and builds up a database of your search and browsing history.

It will include data from your web search, image search, news search, product search (Froogle), video, maps and — even — which AdSense Ads you have clicked on. Google’s Blogger, Reader, Bookmark and Picasa services are not included.

It sounds a bit scary, doesn’t it? Google is actually storing all these data on their own servers.

Danny Sullivan has written a long and interesting article on the new Web History, where he also touches upon the privacy issues following from Google’s new feature:

“With today’s announcement, part of me wants to ring the alarm bell and shout ‘Uninstall your toolbar! End your Google account!’ Because let’s face it. Google’s getting big, huge, giant. It’s no longer a joke that the once small, lovable company wants to conquer the world. The Google monster company really is gobbling it up, with no barriers seemingly left.”

But he still believes in personalized search, simply because it will improve your search experience. If Google can use your search history, they will know more about your interests and will be better at serving you the search results you need (and spoiling the fun for many search engine spammers in the process).

See also the Google Blog: Searching without a query and Anil Dash’ article Google Web History - Good and Scary.

Techmeme has links to the online discussion.