The question is, with regard to Google, does turning "personal history" on or off make a difference in what records they keep about your searches? Obviously if it's on they do keep records, but if you disable it or never turn it on, does that mean that they don't keep records? http://www.google.com/searchhistory/privacy.html says: "You can delete information from My Search History, and it will be removed from the service and no longer available to you. However, as is common practice in the industry, and as outlined in the Google Privacy Policy, Google maintains a separate logs system for auditing purposes and to help us improve the quality of our services for users." http://www.google.com/privacy.html says: "Google collects limited non-personally identifying information your browser makes available whenever you visit a website. This log information includes your Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your query and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser. We use this information to operate, develop and improve our services." The bottom line seems to be that even with MSH turned off, Google will still record your IP address and cookie, presumably along with the search query you made. You can block Google cookies to help with this, and if you use a shared IP address then this will give you some privacy protection. Chances are that other search engines do the same thing. For real privacy, do as I do: use TOR or some other anonymizer, and either block cookies or use a separate browser altogether for anonymous browsing. CP