Ohye: Hi, my name is Maile Ohye.
I'm a Support engineer at Google.
In the second video in our series on privacy,
I'd like to talk about the kinds of information
that Google can use to personalize
your search experience.
I'll also show you
some tools we've designed
to help you protect your privacy
while still being able to benefit
from the improved search experience
that personalization can offer.
Google's goal is to give you exactly the information
you want when you want it.
With more and more information coming online every day,
this is pretty hard to do.
And oftentimes, there's guesswork involved
because the same words and concepts
can mean different things to different people.
For example,
say you search for the word "b-a-s-s."
Are you looking for great fishing spots
or checking out a guitar?
Or how about golf?
Do you want to play a round on the nearest course
or buy a Volkswagen?
Our software can't always answer these questions.
After all, you're the only one who knows
exactly what you're looking for.
But search algorithms that take into account
your personal preferences do a much better job
of getting it right.
Here's how.
Knowing your IP address and domain,
the country you're accessing Google from,
helps us make your results more relevant
by taking into account your general location.
So if you're in Chicago,
and you type "football"
into google.com,
you'll get different results than if you did the same search
in London on google.co.uk.
But your IP address and domain don't tell us anything
about your specific interests.
Knowing about you, in particular,
can be our most valuable tool
in delivering the results
you actually want.
That's where Google Account comes in.
You can sign up for a Google account
with just a user name and password.
It's what you do, for example,
when you create a Gmail account.
Your email and password
don't tell us personal stuff about you,
like your name, age, or occupation.
So why do we need them?
Well, in addition to helping us verify
that you're really you
and not someone else who's using your computer,
your email and password allow us to maintain a record
of your Web History, the things you search for,
and the sites you visit.
We can use your Web History
to rank your search results
so that the information that you're more likely
to be looking for
shows up at the top of the list.
Take that search for "b-a-s-s."
If your Web History tells us
you've been checking out sites about the Rolling Stones,
your search results are less likely
to be focused on rods and reels.
And if your Web History shows that you've searched
for information about handicaps or clubs,
your golf search results are more likely
to be about the game than the car.
You can view your Web History any time you like.
Just sign in to Google and click Web History.
What about privacy?
Well, you control every aspect of your Web History,
including whether you want to use it at all.
Say you're searching for a gift for your husband
and don't want your search to appear
in the Web History of a computer you share.
No problem.
Just open up your Web History
and click Pause.
And Web History will stop
recording your searches
until you unpause it.
Maybe you just want to keep certain types
of Web searches or site visits private.
That's easy.
You can just tick off individual items
that you don't want included in your history
or clear your entire history
with just a click.
If you do this,
the only items we'll keep a record of
are the things we discussed in our first video:
your search query, IP address,
and cookie,
but none of your personal information.
As you can see,
we're able to personalize your search results
to help you find even more useful information
when you search on Google.
We also strongly believe that you should have control
over what information we maintain about your Web History
and when we can use it to personalize your search results.
If you want to learn more
about Google search personalization and privacy,
visit our Privacy Center at google.com/privacy.
Thanks for watching,
and thanks for searching on Google.