Google syncs searches to mobile devices

Google is enticing users to forget about their online privacy and web search tracking concerns in favor of convenience and functionality. When users log on to their Google accounts and enable Web History, Google will now sync recent searches across platforms. The feature means you can search for a place on your laptop before you leave home and find out more detailed information on your mobile phone (without even having to remember the name or address of the place you were looking for) while you are on the go. “How often are you doing a Google search from your computer to find information about a place before going there?” asks Google Software Engineer Junichi Uekawa in a post on the company’s Google Mobile Blog. “Now, next time you go to Google.com on your Android phone or iPhone, information about that place will be conveniently available under the new ‘Recent’ icon. Calling, getting directions or seeing details about the places you just searched for is now only one tap away.” Users can locate recent searches in the new “Recent” icon on the Google.com mobile homepage (when they are logged into their account). Recent cross-platform search results will be available for approximately 24 hours. Mobile apps such as Firefox Home provide a similar function, enabling signed in users to sync bookmarks and already opened websites between PCs and mobile devices. Google has come under fire for its recent privacy policy changes. Under the new policy the web giant is able to combine user information gathered from different Google products to build a more complete user profile. Google says this will “enable us to build a better, more intuitive user experience across Google for signed-in users.”