Fedora :: Get Rid Of Recent Documents Under Places Menu On Gnome Panel?

There are measures to stop this in Windows even though there are still things you can't get rid of. Now on to my question, Why can't I edit the Places menu but I can edit the Applications and System menus. I really want to get rid of the Recent Documents menu header. I don't like things like that right up on front street. I am quite a stickler about privacy and one of the reasons I decided to try out linux is because I heard it was better in the sense of respecting privacy. But now I am seeing that you don't even have the ability to get rid of a tracking item such as Recent Documents. Quite disappointing.

I can understand tracking recent changes to the system but it is not necessary to track what you open or what you browse on the internet. Hence Firfox's ability to not store history and the clear cache, history, etc. on shutdown of Firefox. So Am I misinformed about the fact that linux does respect privacy? What kind of world are we coming to that it is necessary to track everything. Especially here in the U.S., I mean I'm thinking 1984 here lol. Anyway, how to remove these tracking features in Fedora. I mean in the sense of just stopping it. It sucks to have to go through and "clear" everything that tracks you every time you want to log off or shut down.