Its from The Guardian and it was not published in April.
I know Google was always collecting data about me and I have so far decided to let it slip as a compromise in light of their contributions to the internet and also because I though they weren't personally identifiable.
But if this story was true then this is seriously not okay, its one thing to ask for your real name and home address directly through filling up a form, its another thing to snoop them up without your knowledge.
The article itself clarifies that the source of the tip was an employer:
Update: Police in Suffolk County, NY, released the following statement on Thursday evening:
"Suffolk County Criminal Intelligence Detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee. The former employee's computer searches took place on this employee's workplace computer."
Employers have a legal right to review employees' computers and Internet traffic, and if the employee was being released for any reason, it is highly likely that the employer would exercise that right - it's kind of standard to monitor people who are being released, usually to ensure they aren't exfiltrating company data.
(The article is dated August 2013; while the author doesn't time the exact incident, it's reasonable to believe the web searches would have been inspired by the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, which used a pressure cooker bomb carried in a backpack. And it's also reasonable to believe that police would have paid attention to such a report in that timeframe.)
