Guys, I was told by a friend today that "they're going to be able to gather all of Google acc't users' web history and be allowed to sell it" and that this friend (who has a gmail acc't) had to go into her google acc't settings and remove all her web history (she even gave me instructions) - so I was thinking this might be a violation of internet privacy, etc, and I'm now on Mom's PC as I was going to go into her WIE settings and either invoke InPrivate Browsing or Delete Browsing History in order to protect her before doing this on all my computers.

My friend said this was a real threat to internet users. So I looked it up in one of my schoolbooks (from last semester) but it didn't mention the collecting of your browsing info and selling it but it did say that people can keep track of all your browsing habits just by checking your web history listing - so now I'm not sure if this friend was just panicking for no real reason or if this is a valid threat, and if it is, should I invoke the InPrivate Browsing or Delete Browsing History on Mom's PC?

(link)

www.theblaze.com/stories/why-you-might-want-to-delete-your-google-browser-history-before-next-week/

Another link (which I suggest you check out) says when Google adopts this new privacy policy you will be forced to accept it even if you don't want to and it could spread your private info across the internet - should users of google acc'ts take action? Does this affect other browsers (hotmail/safari/internet explorer, etc?

Very, very old news, cruise. They've been tracking us for years and Google is hardly the only one. All Google did was consolidate all your privacy policies into one "umbrella" policy. Good or bad? Who knows. All deleting your browsing history does is keep someone from looking at it on your computer. It can't hurt, but has little to do with tracking. I use the Do Not Track options in Firefox and Chrome, but their usefulness is debatable. There is another thread here addressing tracking and a few things you can do about it. I've been following the issue for a couple of years now. Unsafe Browser and Tracking

And, by the way, your thread title is very misleading.

EDIT: Checked your "The Blaze" website and they have a somewhat poor rating as far as tracking goes. It has an average of 8 trackers on the front page.

Oh, thank you so much, Drac! This friend (as I sense in my head) is sort of the type that's afraid of things, and she sort of gets easily alarmed (as she was telling me today) She only knows a little wee bit (about one iota) about computers compared to what I know.

Now I'm thinking "don't let her scare you, Cruise" - correct?

That's correct. I'm not saying don't be concerned about tracking because you should be. See my edit in my first post concerning your Blaze website. And check out the websites I cited in my post in the other thread I linked to to. There is a ton of information there and a couple of browser add-ons that are pretty interesting.

The main thing is to educate yourself about the issue.

I edited the title. Thanks Draclvr.
Appreciate the cold water shower.

I just enabled Private Browsing on my mac's Safari browser, and am now wondering if I should enable InPrivate Browsing on Mom's IE on her computer (all without letting her know so as not to upset her b/c she tends to get upset when I talk to her about computers since she doesn't understand computers and she prefers not to) just to protect her online use or not?

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Just now I went into my mac's Safari settings, deleted today's browsing history and also all of my past browsing history and inwardly breathed a sigh of relief afterwards - it was a cinch!

However, back in 2009 I had to always ask someone else (nephew/visiting neighbor) to tell me how to do something like this (when I first got my mac).

Did you read my edit in my post above about the tracking on your Blaze website? All this does is illustrate that tracking is everywhere, not just on Google. Like I said, education and awareness is the key to understanding how it all works.

Oh, I see MaG edited out the March 1 date and replaced it with "inquiry", which is OK with me, but I just wanted to let you guys know that the reason I had that date on my thread title was b/c while I was at this friend's house she gave me this date (along with the URL), she said she didn't even know anything about it until her sister in law told her about if a week ago and then the friend had someone change her google acc't setting accordingly - er what was misleading about my thread title, the entire title or the date only, being that now I understand (as pointed out b, Drac) that this stuff is ancient history?

The word "scheme" comes to mind...

I just d/l IE 9, and tried to enable InPrivate Browsing (on the Win 7 Acer), but I have to keep enabling it each time I go online. I know there's a way to enable it automatically but I don't know how to do this?

Now I'm on the M1530 (XP) using Safari, again I have to keep enabling Private Browsing each time I go online, how to I enable it automatically (I was able to do it on my mac but it's a different OS with different interface)?

EDIT - just checked my mac - just like in windows, I have to keep turning on Private Browsing on its Safari.

I don't use IE, cruise, so I don't know how it works. Why don't you try Googling it?

Just went to Tracking Protection > Personalized List, the ststus of which is Disabled (on the Win 7 Acer). I hope this is the correct way to disable tracking?

EDIT - Just enabled this feature.

http://www.pcworld.com/ Scroll about half way down the page for an article regarding this; there are also other links per pcworld.