what is google collecting? (Score 0)

I hope people can be honest about reading my post and answering the questions I have at the end. I understand that google makes it money through advertising and that by monitoring our surfing habits they are able to offer more targeted ads that allow them to be more profitable. My google account seems like the best way that google is able to build a profile about me and what type of consumer I might be. I also know that google can collect information about me and associate it with my ip address but this seems like more temporary collection of information as my ip address can change and I may not be the only person who uses the computer from a particular ip address. My google account contains all my email since 2004 (GMAIL), my search and entire web history for at least the last 3 years (WEB HISTORY), and a listing of all the locations Iâ(TM)m interested in or need to know how to get to (MAPS). They may (or may not, not sure) have my entire chat history for the last 2 years (TALK). They also have my entire picture collection uploaded to Picasa although Iâ(TM)m not sure how they can use images to learn more about what kind of consumer I am (yet). Their ability to collect this information and associate it with me over the course of months and years hinges on me being logged into my google account throughout the day (especially web history). Over the last few years, I couldnâ(TM)t help but notice serious efforts to make this a reality. One clear effort was the igoogle home page. Another was the addition of the gchat module on the left side of my email. Another was the toolbar that was added to the top of my account whenever I log in to gmail. As google continues to create more products, I canâ(TM)t help but feel that their impressive efforts to develop great products will pay off in dividends when individuals stay logged into their accounts for a more substantial part of the day. This allows google to learn more about their surfing habits. As technology improves, the ability to aggregate this information into a meaningful profile will only improve as well. To this end, I canâ(TM)t help but feel that Chrome (which seems like a wonderful piece of work) was created in part to keep me logged in for a more substantial part of my day. Is this true? Are there any practical reasons that using Chrome might make me more likely to stay logged in to my account than Firefox or IE might (like the application shortcuts)? Are there any more subversive reasons (like the fact that chrome automatically associates with my account and maintains that link in a more substantial or permanent way than other browsers might)? Another question I have is regarding disabling web history in my account. When I disable this feature, does that mean that google will no longer collect that information and associate it with my account or does it simply mean that google will not offer me access to that information through my account? Thanks for any comments that people might be able to offer.