It looks like Google is saving my search history and tying them to my account. How do I turn this off now?

Question

For a long time, when you would be logged in via something like Gmail or even a straight "Google Account", you could go into the privacy/advanced settings and turn on something to save your search history if you were so inclined. I never wanted it turned on, so I left it off.

I just now searched for something at work and I saw in the autocomplete dropdown list, in purple, a term I searched for at home last night. Since I'm logged into the same Gmail account at home and at work, my guess would be that this means Google is saving my search results now.

Thing is, I can't figure out how to turn it off now. I can't find the page where this was enabled/disabled before and I'm thinking this may be tied to the recent Google+ thing and account migration.

Does anyone know if there's a way to turn off Google saving your search results anymore?

Answer 1

Visit https://www.google.com/history/, log in and click the "Pause Web History" button near the top of the page.

Then, if you wish, click the "Clear entire Web History" link just below that.

Answer 2

Even if there is such an option, you would still be relying on Google to keep their word and not track your searches. If you are concerned about privacy while conducting searches you would be better off configuring your browser to delete cookies at shutdown, and do not perform searches while being logged into any Google account.