Google Chrome Loses Luster over EULA, Privacy Concerns

This seemed to mollify my anonymous poster, who later added this comment: "So maybe they aren't that evil after all."

Snarky comments aside, Google has other issues it must contend with, including questions of privacy. Google stores 2 percent of the information users type into the Omnibox, a bar that combines a browser's address bar and search box.

It should be noted that this applies only to Google Chrome users who have Google set as their default search engine on the browser and have the suggest feature turned on.

A Google spokesperson explained to me that "many of those entries are for search queries, which we already store basic log information for as we do for a search made from any browser when the user hits enter. "

Also, a user can either turn off the suggest feature or use the Incognito mode and entries into the Omnibox will not be stored in Google's logs, unless the user hits enter and has entered a search query in the Omnibox.

In my opinion, 2 percent isn't so bad. Google is already tucking away info on our search queries, so why should the Omnibox be any different?

And if you're totally paranoid about this, turn off auto-suggest; you need to make the decision about what's more important. Is it the auto-suggest feature, or the comfort of knowing that Google can't access the minute quantity of search query data from you through Chrome that it already gets from your general search queries?

ReadWriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick has a great post on Google's privacy line-straddling history here.