I don’t want to panic you, BUT . . .

We search on the internet all day, every day, for information. Houses, illnesses, people, events, books . . . you name, we search for it.

But have you ever searched for something on Google that you wouldn’t want the WHOLE WIDE WORLD (or the WWW) to know about?

Well, look out. If you have a Google account, Google has changed their Privacy Policy, and everything that you have ever searched for in a Google search will now be publicly available unless you do something about it.

So if you want to clear out your web history and keep Google from keeping public record of where you search, here are some simple steps to help you out:

• Go to your Web History and enter your password if prompted to do so.
• If your web history is ON, the list of sites that you have visited that have been recorded by Google will be displayed.
• Click on the “Remove All Web History” button.
• They will ask you (because you really don’t mean it, right?) if you are “. . . sure you want to clear your entire web history? Your web history will also be paused.”  Oh, yes, YOU’RE SURE.
• You should then see “Your search history is currently empty” and that your “Web History is paused”  STAY AWAY FROM THE RESUME BUTTON.  Leave it PAUSED.
• You are now done.

Don’t be misled. Google will still be tracking you, but they will not be able to make that information public on their forums, they can only release it to law enforcement officials in an investigation. I suggest that you don’t Bookmark this and wait for a future time, but that you do it right now (it will take about one minute). Now all of your friends won’t find out that you were searching for Painted Ladies, when you were actually looking up Victorian Homes.  WHEW . . . and you’re welcome 🙂