Online Privacy: How to Hide Your Google Search Trails

AOL, the fourth most popular search engine, recently released search queries of 650,000 AOL subscribers on the Internet. Though AOL now says that it was a mistake and quickly removed the search data from its Web site, mirror copies of AOL search terms continue to be available across the Web.

All search engines, including Yahoo, Google, and MSN, retain search data of their users, which can easily give a clue about the person's identity and a glimpse into his mind and online activity. When you perform a search on Google, the site search logs keep a record of your computer's IP address, cookie ID, and the search query terms. Google may also go so far as to track your clicks from the search results page by rewriting the destination URL.

Though it is highly unlikely that Google users will ever come across this "AOL Data Spill"–like embarrassing situation, the possibility cannot be ruled out completely, especially after Chief Executive Officer of Google Inc. Eric Schmidt's remark that, "... this sort of thing would not happen at Google although you can never say never."

If you are worried that some day Google, by mistake, might disclose your private search terms into public Internet domain, try some of the following suggestions that may fool the search engine or give it a hard time recognizing you. Here, I will look at all possible ways to control and reduce the negative privacy impact of each of these search variables.

1. Disallow Google to Store Cookies.
   
   
   

   
   
   
   The important thing is that it doesn't suffice to block cookies from just the Google.com domain; you must also block cookies from the Google site in your own country.
   
   For example, in India, one would block Google.com and Google.co.in — this is because Google redirects you to your local country page when you type in Google.com in the browser address bar.
   
   To block cookies, open the Cookie blocking dialog in your browser, type in the site URL, and click disallow or block.
   
   In Internet Explorer: Click Tools>Internet Options>Privacy>Sites
   In Firefox: Click Tools>Options>Privacy>Cookies>Exceptions
   
   Remember that your Google Personalized Search History won't work after you disable cookies from Google.com. Also, you may have to type the username and password of other Google services each time you log in since cookies are disabled and you won't be automatically logged in.
2. Use Scandoo.
   
   Scandoo is a wonderful search-engine wrapper that warns you of malicious Web sites in search results. The good part is that Scandoo can help you search Google, Yahoo, or MSN without disclosing your actual geographic location (or IP address) to the search engine. The Scandoo interface remains invisible to the end user, making it feel as though you were searching via Google itself.
3. Download Hide My Ip software.
   
   Your IP address is one big link between your search queries. You are lucky if your ISP provides you a dynamic IP address that changes frequently, but if you are stuck with a static IP, you can still hide it with Hide My IP address software.
   
   Hide My IP conceals your real IP address and shows a fake IP with a hostname to the sites that you visit. You also can set Hide My IP to change your IP address every minute.
4. Download CustomizeGoogle for Firefox.
   
   If you perform Google searches using Firefox, this is a highly recommended extension that completely enhances your Googling experience. It can help remove Google Ads, anonymize your Google userID, remove click tracking, or filter Google search results.
5. Search with Dogpile.
   
   Use Dogpile.com to search Ask Jeeves, MSN, Google, and Yahoo simultaneously while blocking cookies from all of these search engines. The site lets you search the Web for audio, video, news, and phone-book listings.
6. Block Google from Tracking Your Clicks.
   
   

   

   
   
   Google's click-tracking feature secretly tracks which URLs you clicked on your Web results page. The Google Privacy policy states that Google use this click information to improve the quality of search technology, customized content, and advertising. Find out more.
7. Don't Use Google or Yahoo.
   
   Don't use Google or Yahoo to search the Web, as they will store your entire trail of activity on their servers. Try Clusty.com or Ixquick.com, which do not save users' search data. Clusty is a meta-search engine based on Vivisimo clustered search: It queries several top search engines, combines the results, and generates an ordered list based on comparative ranking.
8. Finally, There's Always Scroogle Google Scraper.
   
   Scroogle Google Scraper is a search wrapper around Google (and Yahoo) search that lets you anonymously search Google and promises not keep a log of your search query terms.

While searching is a must on the Web, keeping your private search data secure shouldn't be something to worry about. By using these free tools, your sanity will remain intact and your private search terms will stay private.