Google‘s privacy Policy Information is like a Bikini,it coceals more than it reveals.
Google wants to store your personal information for the Samaritan service of helping the Society such as identifying disease, correlating data and helping the Society run smoothly.
Your Data becomes anonymous after 9 months and IP address cookies are deleted after this period.
You have the solemn assurances of Google on this.
The Google also will not(?) share your information with any one including advertisers or market Researchers.
Your information is stored only to serve you.
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Making our search algorithm better
You’re about to go out for dinner and have to choose between two identical-looking restaurants on the same street. One is full, the other empty. You’ll probably choose the bustling restaurant, and when it comes to Google Search, we often use the same principle when selecting which results to give you. To bring you the most relevant results for each search query, we look at the usage patterns of millions of people using Google every day.
It is by analyzing these search patterns via our logs data that our engineers are able to improve the search algorithms that determine the order in which our search results appear. If our engineers can see that people are consistently clicking on the top result for any given query, they know they are doing something right. If people are hitting “next page” or typing in another query, they know they’re not delivering the results that people are looking for, and can then take action to try and improve the search algorithms.
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Have you ever wondered what happens when you type your query into the Google search box and what data we store about that search?
Let’s take a simple search like “cars.” When someone types the word “cars” into the Google search engine, the request gets sent from that user’s computer over the internet to our computers, which look for the right search results. Once our computers have found the results, they send these back to the user’s computer, all in a fraction of a second.
We then store some data about this exchange: the search query (“cars”), the time and date it was typed, the IP address and cookie of the computer it was entered from, and its browser type and operating system. We refer to these records as our search logs, and most websites store records of visits to their site in a similar way.
Here’s what a typical log entry at Google looks like:
But what does this all mean?
- IP address:
123.45.67.89is the IP address assigned to the user’s computer by his or her service provider. Just like other websites, when you ask Google for a page (a search results page, for example), we use your computer’s IP address to ensure that we get the right results back to the right computer.It’s important to remember that IP addresses don’t say exactly where an individual user is, or who they are. In fact, some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) give users a different IP address every time they log onto the web. The most Google can tell about a user from his computer’s IP address is that user’s general location (for example, Boston) and possibly the ISP they use to connect to the Internet. Only the ISP (who actually controls the user’s account) can match an individual with an IP address.- Time and date:
25/Aug/2011 10:15:32is the date and time the user typed the query into Google.- Search query:
http://www.google.com/search?q=carsis the search query, in this case “cars.”- Browsers and operating systems:
Chrome 2.0.0.7; Windows NT 5.1is the browser and operating system being used.- Cookie:
740674ce2123a969is the unique cookie ID assigned to a browser the first time a user visits Google. Like an IP address, a cookie doesn’t tell Google who a user actually is or where they live – it only identifies a computer. You can delete these cookies at any time in your computer’s browser.
Time limits on data retention
We anonymize IP addresses after 9 months and alter the cookie numbers in our logs permanently after 18 months. This breaks the link between the search query and the computer it was entered from and is similar to the way in which credit card receipts replace digits with hash marks to improve customer security.
Here is what an IP address could look like in our logs after 9 months: 123.45.67.XXX. After 18 months, the cookie will be replaced by a newly-generated cookie number.
Google was the first major search engine to announce time limits on the retention of logs data, and we’re pleased that others in the industry have followed our lead.
Just like cookies in the offline world, online cookies don’t last forever. Google cookies expire after two years. Additionally, Google has always allowed people to use its services without cookies (though this may mean losing the use of some features or functions of particular products).
Why we store search logs
We use search logs for many purposes, for example, to keep our services secure, develop new features that make search faster and more relevant, and even to predict outbreaks of disease.Learn more
It’s good to know what’s stored in a search log when you search on Google. Read the next topic: How ads are targeted by Google.
https://www.google.com/goodtoknow/data-on-google/search-logs/
Some of the things we learn from how people search can be useful for communities all over the world.
Disease
Imagine that somewhere in a remote place a man goes to Google and types in [fever]. Seconds later somebody nearby searches for [muscle ache]. And when more and more people from the same region start doing a similar search, it’s likely that something’s up.
Sometimes general patterns of search behavior match up closely to things happening in the offline world. When those correlations are strong, it can be possible to use spikes in a particular search to understand real-world behavior more quickly than traditional methods can notice a change. Using the aggregated searches of millions of people, we can help spot flu outbreaks or changes in economic conditions, giving professionals more time—and better information—to make decisions.
In 2008, we found that some search terms are good indicators of actual flu activity. It turns out that traditional flu surveillance systems take between one and two weeks to collect and release surveillance data. But Google search queries can be counted automatically very quickly. By making our flu estimates available each day, Google Flu Trends can provide an early-warning system for outbreaks of influenza. We have used the same insight to look at patterns of other diseases and have created an early warning system for dengue fever.
It’s important to remember that Google Flu Trends can never be used to identify individual users because we rely on anonymized, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur each week. We rely on millions of search queries over time, and the patterns we observe in the data are only meaningful across large populations of Google search users.
Economics
By studying the way people search, we can also pick up on other important trends, like changes in the economic climate. For example, the Bank of England tracks search trends related to consumer behavior in the United Kingdom. By watching out for changes in demand for goods, mortgages and concerns about inflation, the Bank hopes to improve the speed of economic reporting and the responsiveness of fiscal decision making.
Google Correlate
Because we believe there are so many things that can be learned from aggregated search activities, we’ve introduced Google Correlate. This allows researchers to upload their own data series and see a list of search terms whose popularity best corresponds with real-world trends.
It’s good to know how search data can enable us to help society. Read the next theme: How you can manage your data online
https://www.google.com/goodtoknow/data-on-google/helping-society/
If the above video is unavaiable her please follow Link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGghlPmebCY
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