Good grief
"They keep it for x years that I looked for 'mud wrestling llamas' or whatever?"
"When you start searching for something that could be considered personal, you might get the point about privacy."
oh please, because I think you're over-reacting I don't >understand< about privacy? Perhaps I search for personal things all the time, as I highly doubt that anyone at Google, from the lowest phone-lackey to the most top bod would be even the slightest bit interested in what >I<, myself, me has been looking for, at least from the point of view you are worried about, such as thinking that for some reason they are singling out YOU and WATCHING YOUR EVERY MOVE. Yet you probably think that some other search engine leaves you perfectly safe.
Lets clarify a couple of things here:
1. How do you know about other search engine retention policy? How do you know that its correct or accurate? Or even true? If you are worried about Google tracking your searches and identifying you, you should probably just stop using the net. Period.
2. Your card company, supermarket and countless other organisations have almost certainly got a lot more 'data' on you than Google will ever have. And they KNOW who you are.
Where's that tin-foil-hat icon gone then?