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Comment by TillE | Hacker News Reader

> enable all your Search History

This is something I just can't bring myself to do. I disabled it years ago, along with all the other personalization options.

I don't mind giving them my location. I don't even mind them analyzing my mail. But I search for all kinds of crap, and I really really don't want anyone building a profile on me based on that.

The manual customization options in Google Now are sadly lacking. I've been able to add a few sports teams, but that's about it.

I suppose I could switch all my default searches to DuckDuckGo, then only use Google judiciously to deliberately train it. Hm, I think I will.

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Its not just training, though... It will update you based on searches you make on an ongoing basis, often in very unexpected but nice ways. To make that work out, I think you really just need to be using Google search day to day.

this. I often will fire off a quick search for a restaurant I'm going to go to or am interested in going to, before I leave. Then the directions are on the google now card for me for the next hour or so, so if I feel like checking the restaurant out I click the card and I get directions.

It's amazing.

I've always been under the impression that they're building a profile on you, like it or not. All you're really choosing is whether or not you too will take advantage of it, or if Google is the sole benefactor of your activities.

I too search all kinds of crap, and I don't mind anyone to build a profile on me based on that, if that's what I like. Some more crap in the future might be relevant for me, and I don't want to miss out!

What makes you think disabling search history is going to stop them?

Just train yourself to use Incognito Mode when you're looking for porn.

This in wonderful advice. More broadly, use one browser and account for the stuff you'd like to train Google on, and another (in incognito mode) for the stuff you'd prefer not to add to your profile.

Of course, they'll probably still know its you, but one imagines the algorithms will respect your preferences (as it would make the service worse if they didn't).

Eh, porn is the least of my concerns. Google's probably smart enough to filter that out when making decisions anyway, I assume.

Maybe I'm strange, but there's a fairly broad array of stuff I'd rather keep off the record. Anything that could possibly imply illegal activity, for example.

I too had it off for a long time, but eventually enabled it. It's really nice to have Google Now automatically show directions to places you recently searched for in Maps.

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