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Comment by jxi | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes, I feel like these websites should probably just have a "do not track" setting. That should appease all these pitchforks. In the end, I'm pretty convinced that tracking is really to make your life better since Google offers to delete all your data if you wanted anyway.

Heck, now people are making a profit out of this whole misunderstood privacy fiasco.

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Google stores your search history for 18 months (http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/faq/) and your browsing history indefinitely (using ad cookies).

They do not offer to delete either (though they do give you some controls, which is way more than most other tracking services). Prove me wrong.

Google does allow you to delete some stored data. They don't offer easy options to delete everything (though they do give advice on how to remove information from third-party sites), but it's better than nothing.

https://www.google.com/dashboard

They also tell you what cannot be removed through the dashboard, and give a list of things that are not deletable (but also not tied to your account).

https://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...

Again, Google doesn’t let you delete your search or browsing history. I’d argue this is, by far, the most personal info they collect about you.

Google doesn’t even mention either in the two links you gave.

Just delete your cookies after each browsing session?

I think the bigger misunderstanding is people screaming that it's better for Google customer if they delete the data. People forget with all google does it's still a business. Forgetting that businesses aren't good nor are they evil. Businesses are greedy which they should be. Google being the worlds largest advertiser uses your data to make the money that their businesses is built on. So why would they delete the core functionality.

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