The clock is ticking. March 1 is your deadline. Most lawyers with Google Accounts will want to read and act on this ABA Journal article: Want to Delete Web History Before Google Gathering Takes Effect? EFF Shows How. After reading the article, I logged into my Google account and was frankly amazed at the data that Google had collected on me at https://www.google.com/history. So many searches. And I thought I rarely watched YouTube Videos, but my history sure has a lot.

The thing that I think I have learned today is any time I am logged into GMail or any Google service, then Google saves information that I wouldn't have anticipated. While I still do not believe this infromation will be shared with advertisers in ways that compromises client confidentiality, any benefit I might get is not worth the history being saved. A lawyer who does an arraignment for a high profile client that has media coverage may not want any record outside of his office that he did a dozen searches on the Twinkie defense that week. You can come up with your own examples.

I'll still use Google services, but most lawyers will make the decision in the future that they will log into Google, do what they need and log out rather than staying logged in to Google all day. That may mean finding an alternative for Google Reader for example, because most users will stay logged into it all day. And it may mean that Gmail will be reexamined again as an appropriate office tool by those still using it. I already expressed my frustration with this change in my post Et Tu, Google? 

Pass it along to your friends and colleagues. The last few days of February 2012 should be known as Google History Deleting Days.