Google has a launched a new service, Google Web History that makes it easy for Google users to view and search previously visited web pages.

“If you remember seeing something online, you’ll be able to find it faster and from any computer with Web History,” said Payam Shodjai, Product Manager for Personalization on the company’s official blog.

“Web History lets you look back in time, revisit the sites you’ve browsed, and search over the full text of pages you’ve seen. It’s your slice of the web, at your fingertips.”

To use Web History you’ll need a Google Account with the Google Toolbar and PageRank enabled. The Toolbar helps Google associate pages you visit with your Google Account.

Google is promoting the concept as a virtual information library.

“Imagine being able to search over the full text of pages you’ve visited online and finding that one particular quote you remember reading somewhere months ago. Imagine always knowing exactly where you saw something online, like that priceless YouTube video of your friend attempting to perform dance moves from a bygone age,” said Shodjai.

Despite the service being opt in and fully voluntary, privacy advocates are already starting to express concern.

Australian Privacy Foundation chair Roger Clarke told the Sydney Morning Herald that “Every URL that you ever go to at any time is being sifted through at Google and thrown into their archives to help them build a profile about you forever.”

Despite Google’s well-promoted privacy policy, Clarke thinks that Google ”will find ways to breach every undertaking that they ever did”.

While it’s important to consider privacy issues, could it simply be that Google wants to build a compelling service to keep users coming back?

This is enough of a reason for Google to keep on doing the right thing.

Related:

Entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 11:52 am under Google, Internet, Security.

Read more entries by John Pospisil.
Stumble It!