Martin Brinkmann – ghacks.net: “Most online companies make available privacy related settings that their customers can modify to their liking. The default settings are often less than optimal and making sure that everything is set up properly is one of the first things that you should do. In fact, it is also important to check those settings regularly just to make sure nothing has changed. The Google Account History is where Google displays some of the information that it collects about you. Search History for example is turned on by default, which means that all searches on Google will be recorded by it if you are signed in to a Google account at that time. There is a misconception though in regards to the Account History feature: some users believe that disabling history features will stop Google from recording data. It won’t. While it limits Google on what it can do with the data, the company may still record it as confirmed on the “delete search history” page…What is being recorded – According to Google, the following information are recorded by its servers:

1. The IP address of the user.
2. The date and time the request was made.
3. The full request URL including search query.
4. The header that includes the browser and operating system.
5. A unique cookie ID that is stored on first visit…”