Stefano Demiliani WeBlog

Google and privacy... again

I can see a big amount of rumours against the last Google Desktop Search Beta service (I remember, BETA Service) launched last week by Google... exactly like the Gmail service, what is under fire is the user privacy.

As I've pointed out last week, Google Desktop Search on this Beta stage must not be used on a shared pc, because it caches lots of users data that can be retrieved by other people that have access to the machine.

So, if you plan to have a machine that is shared between lots of users, Google Desktop Search is not recommended now... but what I'm surprised to see are all these rumours against privacy.

Google Desktop Search is not a spyware, it has the ability to retrieve data that are on the target pc, naturally...  Google's desktop only caches what's already on the machine's hard drive, don't forget this!  Google Desktop Search doesn't do anything that an end-user wouldn't be able to do with a little cache snooping and looking in temporary files on the machine.  Second, Google provides this tool for personal use at the moment, so installing it on a shared machine is really a stupid action. Third, this is only a Beta version released for testing, so it can be improved and must be improved.

Yes, maybe Google could alert the users about these "side effects" of its Google Desktop Search on a shared pc, but I think that all these facts are not a scandal as someone has trying to say...