[Sandwich]

Just what the title says. I left for work this morning half-way through a Authors@Google piece with George R. R. Martin (GRRM). 8 hours later I get back and discover that my YouTube History contains 2 Linkin Park music videos which I've never seen, clicked on, or even heard of above (ie more recent than) the GRRM video.

I've had this happen before and always chalked it up to my wife stumbling across the videos somehow before switching to her YT account for the kids to watch Mickey Mouse & Pooh, but I never actually asked her about it. Today I did, and she denies having watched those videos - she hadn't even heard of Linkin Park (which, knowing my wife, I believe).

So I checked the browser history, and whaddya know - those 2 videos don't appear at all. I see clear as day the GRRM video I watched this morning, followed by a gaggle of kid's videos this afternoon, and then back to the GRRM video I resumed when I returned home. Not a hint that my browser had been watching Linkin Park.

I did a Google search for "youtube videos in history never watched" (without the quotes), and found nearly 75 million results. Granted, some of them are irrelevant, like YouTube's Wikipedia entry, but many, many more are other people complaining of the same thing.

So, I tossed those videos into a new playlist, called "Videos inserted into YT Viewing History that I never watched". I plan on adding every video I find mysteriously added to my history into that playlist. It's public, so feel free to click through to those videos with an AdBlocker firmly installed and rate them down or something.

[Klaustrophobia]

this doesn't sound like the reason since you said you've never seen them at all, but now that google is all up in your **** and knows who you are even outside their websites, embedded youtube videos you see on other sites will show up in your youtube history.  yay for internet tracking.  apparently the "do not track" type plugins don't really work.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

You done been hacked? In your case, I'd change my password (to something sturdier, if possible) and see if it still happens.

[Sandwich]

this doesn't sound like the reason since you said you've never seen them at all, but now that google is all up in your **** and knows who you are even outside their websites, embedded youtube videos you see on other sites will show up in your youtube history.  yay for internet tracking.  apparently the "do not track" type plugins don't really work.

I can actually test this. Testing...

Ok, I can confirm that merely loading a page with a video embedded does not load it into your YouTube history. You have to actually play the video.

And no, my account has not been hacked. From reading other people's complaints about this issue, it's a bug or a feature.