Just few days ago I was commenting on new google features and now we have another one: Desktop.google.com. It allows to index and search every file stored in your filesystem, every site in your Internet Explorer cache, every email in your Outlook, every chat/instant message in your AOL. (It is only for Window$ so I have no way to try it.)
This reminded me of a post of Alf Eaton:Things Google knows about you. The list (now increased) is pretty scary.
o Everything you search for using Google
o Every web page you visit that has Google Adsense ads on it
o Which country you’re in
o Every Blogger page you visit, and the referring page
* If you have an Adsense account
o Your full name, address and bank account details
o The IP address of everyone who visits your pages with Adsense ads on them
o The number of visitors to each of your pages with Adsense ads on them
* If you use a GMail account
o Who you send emails to
o Who sends emails to you
o The contents of those emails
o The contents of all emails received from any mailing lists of which you are a member, even if they are private mailing lists.
* Even if you don’t use a GMail account
o The contents of any emails you send to anyone who does use a GMail account
o The contents of any emails you send to any mailing lists of which any one member uses a GMail account
* If you’re a member of Orkut
o Your online social network, interests and groups
and I added in the comment to that post was:
Everything you would like to buy through http://froogle.com
Everything you post through http://Blogger.com (even your private/unpublished/draft posts)
The photos you store through http://Picasa.com
Which news groups you read through http://groups-beta.google.com/
which keywords you care about (if you set up an alert at http://www.google.com/webalerts)
Something else google does know is:
– news (and people involved) through http://news.google.com,
– images (and people depicted?) through http://images.google.com
– what remote services are most used, through the API (http://www.google.com/apis/)
– probably something out of the toolbar and deskbar (such as the version used?)
– in which directory you tried to classify your site through http://directory.google.com/
– how many books you have written (and how many times you appeared in a book) through http://print.google.com/print/faq.html
The complete amd scary list can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google
Can we say that google knows about you more that yourself?
and
From the toolbar, yes, I forgot that … if the PageRank utility’s switched on: every web site you visit.
Read the comments at that post.
Many were saying Google is good (while Micro$oft is evil) and so they trust Google. This different perception is something worth thinking about.
Anyway, now we can add:
– every file in your filesystem,
– every file in your Internet Explorer cache,
– every email in your Outlook, every chat/instant message in your AOL
(if you use desktop.google.com)
Pingback: Mathemagenic
I think if you are transfering your files e.g. to blogger.com you should be aware the fact that you are loosing control over your data. Problematic would be the chaching of data at google !
More scary the recent news Google is kissing up to dictators in China to get on their good side. And then there’s news Google censors political and social ads it disagrees with.
-They kiss-up to dictators
-They censor political speech like dictators
-They wish to become ubiquitous and omniscient, as dictators wish to do.
Ewwgle.
More scary the recent news Google is kissing up to dictators in China to get on their good side. And then there’s news Google censors political and social ads it disagrees with.
-They kiss-up to dictators
-They censor political speech like dictators
-They wish to become ubiquitous and omniscient, as dictators wish to do.
Ewwgle.
Pingback: Adam Fields weblog
Pingback: Adam Fields weblog
One more sound reason, not to share your files.
Ever heard of the word “privacy”?
I don’t see how they could link all that information to your person. The only thing they have as an ID is your IP address. For normal internet access, that changes regularly anyway. Plus, a lot of poeple, whether from companies or form big ISPs, surf via proxies, so there would be hundreds to thousands of people seeming to come from one computer.
The only way they could link that info to a person – that is when it becomes valuable – is by setting a cookie. And everybody concerned about privacy has cookies disabled in their browser anyway, with a few exceptions on a per-site basis. Right?
The previous entry was mine, but it did not include my name and email. I’m reposting in case anyone wishes to contact me directly on this issue.