The feature is not a great example of what the new privacy policy enables

Mar 6, 2012 13:31 GMT  ·  By

Google products are pretty tightly knit, at least that's what you'd expect, especially when it comes to search. But the latest update to the mobile Google Search site shows that there's still plenty to be done.

For convenience, your desktop local searches now show up on the Google.com mobile homepage in a new "Recent" tab. The idea is to enable you to quickly pick up on a search you first did on your desktop.

"Calling, getting directions or seeing details about the places you just searched for is now only one tap away," Google explained.

"We provide this new convenience feature for users who have Web History enabled and are logged into Google when doing their search," Google explained.

"Start by searching for a place on your PC or other devices, then login to Google.com’s mobile homepage and check the Recent icon. Information about previously searched places will be available under the Recent icon for about a day," it added.

It's a very useful trick, making it easier to keep track of a place without searching for it over and over again. The feature could have been available to you for a long time, it's just re-purposing existing data, Web History has been around for years.

One interesting angle, which many have pointed out, is that this is the type of thing the new privacy policy, which is more explicit about cross-product data sharing, should be good for.

It would be a good example of why Google needs to be able to share info between its services, except for the fact that Google was never limited, by the privacy policy or anything else, from sharing search data from Google.com with Google.com.

It's quite obvious, it's the same site no matter whether you visit it on your phone or on your laptop and it was governed by the same privacy policy.