more on BAD IDEA OF THE WEEK -- Google Launches Personal History Feature

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Lorrie Cranor <lorrie+ () cs cmu edu>
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 09:18:25 -0400
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] BAD IDEA OF THE WEEK -- Google Launches Personal History
Feature

I'm not sure it is such a bad idea. It is entirely voluntarily and
it doesn't turn on unless a user explicitly activates it. As the
Google folks say in the article, you should be careful about
signing on and off when using this feature. Unlike other personalization
systems, if you get sloppy and forget to pause it or turn it off, it is
actually very easy to go in there and remove any records you want
deleted. (For example, Amazon really buries the user interface for
removing purchases from your profile, and it doesn't actually allow
you to remove them completely. You can only prevent them from being
considered when making recommendations. They still show up on
your history list forever whether you like it or not.) There is still
the
risk that that removed Google history items remain in log files, but
then you had that risk even without this service.

Lorrie

------ End of Forwarded Message


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