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DO YOU REMEMBER what the last thing you googled was? What about the first?
You probably don’t – but Google does. And not only that, but the internet giant also stores all your searches too.
Now, for the first time, Google has quietly introduced a feature that will allow you to see everything you’ve ever googled in one place.
The search engine actually rolled the feature out in January but with zero publicity. It only surfaced when it was spotted in a blog devoted to all things Google a few days ago.
So from the mundane (“how to get to Heuston Station”) to the well, less mundane (“am I normal?”), Google has stored it all. Great.
However, this being Google, there are a couple of caveats. It won’t show what you’ve searched for in incognito mode, for example. More importantly, it will only include searches you’ve made while you were signed into your Google account.
If you want to carry out the slightly surreal trawl through your own head and access all your searches, go to Google History, sign in to your Google account, click the Settings icon in the top right, and hit ‘Download’.
You’ll be brought to this slightly unusual pop-up screen which warns you to be careful about not opening this on a public computer. If you’re happy to go ahead with it, click Create Archive.
The actual process will take a few minutes and you’ll receive an email once the zip file containing the searches is ready to be downloaded.
The files are delivered in JSON format, so you will need to open them in a plain text programme or extension – and even then, they’re quite ugly and will require some digging to trawl through.
After that, you can decide what you want to do. If you don’t want Google to keep your search data, you can delete your history, and/or turn off the ‘save search history feature’ in the settings on Google History. It means you won’t get search results that are tailored to your habits any more – which could be worth the trade off, depending on how much you care about how much Google knows about you.
In the spirit of full disclosure…
I downloaded my archive to check that it works, and it was like taking a trip back in time. My searches document certain periods of my life, so I can figure out when I was in college (“how to write an essay quickly”), for example, or when I was just dossing around on the internet (a representative sample includes: “papa roach lyrics last resort”, “pictures of julianna margulies hair” “how to make guacamole”).
The search revealed the very first things I searched for – but only from when I was signed in with a Google account. So my first five searches, all dating from July 2008, were:
1. “arc de triomphe”
2. “defamation on the internet”
3. “how much does an internet moderator get paid”
4. “banking 365″
5. “boards.ie”
I’m not sure what that says about me at the time, to be honest, except that I was spending a lot of time on the internet and I’m only glad that it’s not more embarrassing.
Feel free to share your first or most recent Google searches in the comments (but please, keep it clean…).
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Good to see a reporter standing up to Obama et all – and his wish to curtail free journalism .
He should be supported .
Obama waging war on Journalists – the last thing US govt .wants is freedom of Press .
Aristotle tells us that tyrants hunt down those who oppose their power- and Obama is such a tyrant – as have most of US Presidents – and getting worse .
Who downvotes this…….it’s spot on.
If there’s no freedom of press, there’s no alternative opinion.
Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive. [...] And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment — the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution — not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply “give the public what it wants” — but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.
John F Kennedy
Passing flawed plans to Iran is the least bad thing they have been accused of
Great courage shown, fair play.
The New York Times is a paper which has colluded with the US Government numerous times in oder to appease it. They have previously withheld knowledge from the public on drone strikes at the request of the US Government. While objectivity can never be truly attained in newspapers it should be strived for.
A surprise heart attack our car crash on the way for this man !!
Writing long articles criticising the whistleblowers and then defending his right to keep his sources secret. His sources are no different to the whistleblowers. The standards and hypocrisy of some journalists is nauseating.
And the hypocrisy of the CIA?
While I don’t trust NYT generally, I’d certainly defend their right to resist a request (/threat) from the shameful, clandestine and murdurous CIA, which goes against their constitutionally enshrined journalistic privilege.
Could u give links to support your accusations ??
Was that question for me or Ryleigh, Jim? I’m presuming the latter.
Obviously, there are plenty of links to support my accusations! There are also admissions.
Yeah it’s been more or less proved they are Criminals
In
Action
for Rryleigh – actually your comment was not visible when I wrote
One ‘r’ only.
Naomi Wolff wrote and spoke about all of this a few years back.
I think she said that the final straw for her would be when the government started locking up journalists.
Obama is the toothy, smiling, affable version of his dipshit Cheney-front predecessor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H20CoqyoqtI
The NY Times is an anti-Irish news paper
It is a well known organisation,with very very dodgy people working for it.The point I am making is that regardless of their activities exposing them via a secret source that could be an agent of a foreign agency engaged in a counter espionage mission. The journalist has neither the training or the expertise to handle the information via a public forum…the media. Obscure ,obfuscate and distort information in a logical and rational way is what counter intelligence does to obtain it’s goals.
have your say