Google's policies have their uses

I was quite amazed the first time I saw my search history on my iGoogle profile pages. Every single search, every single site I've ever visited, from home or from work, all indexed and itemised by date and time, was there. Scary stuff...

However, because of it, I was able to locate several web pages I had read a couple of months previously, and needed to refer to again in order to win an argument I was having at the time. I'd neglected to bookmark the pages or StumbleUpon vote them, so having Google record my Internet history in this case proved a boon.

No doubt of course Google have access to all of this, and would be able to build an extremely detailed profile on me, which I don't really like the idea of - but then, given that I am just one of however many hundred million people using Google, can they really be arsed doing this? The best they can do is write an algorithm that looks at what I search for and the sites I visit, and post Google ads based on that.

I say "would" because that would be if I didn't have AdBlock Plus running under Firefox as a well as ruleset on my router blocking most major ad servers. I actually can't remember the last time I even saw an ad on the Internet (whoops - I did, on one site a couple of weeks ago a single banner ad slipped through and was on my screen for all of three seconds before I AdBlocked it.) So even if Google do profile me, their advertising isn't going to reach me anyway. Add to that the fact that I frequently pepper my searches with outlandish queries like "bomb making instructions" and "iguana mating rituals" just to see what comes up, and the profile isn't even an accurate representation of my lifestyle or interests. (Incidentally, that's how I first found the Reg - it came up in response to my search for "vulture breeding information"!)