Google will enable search history by default for all Workspace customers

By the end of March, Google will enable search history by default for all Workspace customers, including users who have disabled the feature. The company wants to separate the Workspace data from other data it collects.

Now admins can choose which users can use the ‘Web & App Activity’. If this is disabled for all users, then the users will not be able to turn it on themselves. If the administrators themselves do not do anything with the setting, then the users can enable or disable it themselves.

“Web & App Activity” will be replaced by a new search history setting, starting March 29, called “Google Workspace Search History, Let Google Know.” The company wants to migrate Workspaces customers and will enable the new tracking option by default for all users, even if the ‘Web and app activity’ option was previously disabled, writes gHacks, among others. The users can turn the new feature on and off themselves and manage their search history.

According to Google, the “Web & App Activity” setting will remain, but after March 29, it will only be used to control the storage of “search data from additional Google services.” That setting will then no longer work for Workspace services such as Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, Chat or Calendar, because it will be replaced by ‘Google Workspace search history’.