That is a very good question, and I guess it all boils down to the old trade-off between security and functionality?


1. All major browsers keep history, caches and temporary files. (Chrome, Safari, IE, FF, Opera). This is an intended feature to potentially improve their efficiency or level of "customer service".

2. Operating systems also hold history, caches, index files, page files, and temporary files.

3. ISPs do the same for traffic that passes through them. Those are their "logs".

I would not, however, expect them to supply that information to a third party, without my explicit consent (opt-in), or legal requirement to do so.

I am sure you have come across the age old controversy of what Windows and IE store, because of their close integration?

Well, Google is a search engine company that makes most of its revenue out of advertising.............. so what do you think that they will be inclined to do? Remembering that this is their browser.