Websites are spying on me
 

I've noticed that some websites (Google being one) record your activity in a way I don't understand.

Google, for example, records your searches whether you like it or not, apparently.

Some websites (including this one) record the places on their site that you've visited, and they remain "visited" (in other words, the hyperlinks are a different color, to indicate that they've been used) even if you delete cookies and empty your cache.

Can anyone tell me why that is?

It's not the website, it's your browser. As a polite feature for you, web browsers since the dawn of time have colored "visited" links a different color from "non-visited" ones. A site can specify those colors, or specify them the same color.

If you've got the target of a link in your recent history (not cookies OR cache), your browser knows about it and will color the link appropriately.

Pretty much everything you mentioned can be turned off in the settings of the site or in your browser settings.

I think you might be referring to Google's Personalized Search, which logs everything you search for while you're signed into your Google account. This will help return more personalized search results in the long run, which I think is pretty cool. If you don't want your search history recorded, you can log into your Google account and turn it off in the settings, and you can also delete items from your search history.

Are you sure you're deleting your cookies and emptying your cache? Maybe you forgot to hit refresh? If you're at this site and you delete your cookies and empty your cache, it should log you out of the site.

I guess my point is that websites can only spy on you if you allow them to do so.

Exactly what you said. Thanks.

No, it was a regular old search from the Google homepage. The only way I've found to get rid of prior searches is to delete them manually, using shift-delete. I think I asked a question specifically regarding this a few months ago.


But thank you, captobvious. :D

(Sorry, couldn't resist this small jest.)

Disable autocomplete in your browser.

FYI shift delete does nothing to remove the file; it just does not send it to the recycling, it is still recoverable.