How to find out who Google thinks you are from your web history (and how it may even have your s*x wrong)

IT has been said that Google knows more about what you like than your own partner

Now the search giant has given a glimpse on just how much information it has collected - and who thinks you are.

But it seems the famed Google algorithms are far from infallible.

And people taking advantage of the facility that allows the public to view what kind of consumer Google thinks they are have been amused to find themselves listed with the wrong age and even s*x.

Nevertheless, the knowledge that Google works so hard to profile its 350m account holders is bound to intensify the debate about privacy which flared up again this week with the announcement that the company was going to start tracking users across all of its sites, including YouTube.

The detailed personal 'profile' sums up many of a user's interests, along with age and gender.

Google builds a detailed profile by harvesting the history of its account holders' visits to sites in its advertising network.

But your age and gender are decided by those of other Google users who have visited the sites you visit, leading to the mistakes.

One blogger from tech site Mashable found this week that Google's Ad Preferences page assume that she was middle-aged - and a man, simply because her interests included technology and computing.

The profile page, called Ad Preferences, is hidden away inside a settings menu in Google Accounts, but can be accessed directly here.

This sort of in-depth profiling raises alarm bells with privacy activists.

'Consumers have increasingly digital lives and they are developing an unfathomably large data trail every day,' says Rainey Reitman, activism director for privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation.

'There has never been another time in history where privacy was under the kind of assault it is today.'

You can opt out of the tracking, or manually edit your details. Google also does not store information on controversial subjects such as pornography.

The Ad preferences page came to public attention following a sweeping change to 'privacy policy' which comes into effect on March 1, although the preferences page was launched some time ago.

YouTube data, Gmail information and search data will all be used to build up ever more accurate advertising profiles and also the company claims it will make searches more personalised.

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