Inside Google

Google this week unveiled a new feature called Dashboard,
intended to give users a way to view — and in modest ways limit — the
breadth of information the search giant collects about our online
lives.

To check out Dashboard, browse to this link, and sign in to your Google account. From there, you can manage which Google Documents you’re sharing, edit your Gchat history, or clear out items from your Web search history, among other tasks.

Google said
it was launching the service "to provide users with greater
transparency and control over their own data." The reaction from
privacy experts has been mixed. Ari Schwartz, vice president and chief operating officer at the Center for Democracy & Technology,
called the Dashboard offering a good first step, and one that is
several steps ahead of what Google’s peers in the search businesses
currently offer their users.

"Google has said that they want to give the user control, but this
is the first time that we’ve really seen them organize that control
over privacy sensitive information," Schwartz said.

But as others have observed, Dashboard doesn’t really give users any
clearer insights into what the company is doing with all of the data it
collects. John Simpson, a consumer advocate with Consumer Watchdog,
said if Google really wants people to use Dashboard, the company should
make it easier to find, noting that there are few links to the tool
from the landing pages of any Google properties. Simpson said Google
also should make it easier for users to blow away stored search and
activity data across multiple Google properties with a single click.

"Google is maximizing the PR value of this feature in response to
critics who have demanded online privacy guarantees," Simpson said in a
written statement. "They are letting a little light shine into the
black box that is Google, but to claim that this is transparency is
absurd."

Whether or not Dashboard’s insights go deep enough, the view it
offers into how much Web and/or search history information Google
stores about users can be startling (the above screen shot shows some
of my search history from earlier this year). Interestingly, I found it
easier to find Web search history by *not* using the Dashboard. To see
what I mean go to Google.com (while signed in), click "Settings," then
select "Google Account Settings," then click the "Web history" link.
You should now be able to scroll back through your search history for
the last five or six months at least.

Now go back to the main personal settings page and click the link
next to Dashboard that says "View data stored with this account." You
have to then scroll down to the "Web history" section, and click the
"Web" link to view the same information through the Dashboard.