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Thursday, February 08, 2007
Google taking over my life
Google started a new service some time ago, Google Calendar, where you can store your appointments in an online calendar, and access it from anywhere via a browser. I think I'm going to use that, it is such a natural extension of the GMail I'm already using extensively. Come to think of it, I'm also using Google's personalized home page, Google's blogging service, Google finance, Google maps, Google's photo album software, and who knows what else in the future. I'd certainly use the rumored Google drive to store data if it would come out. Google, Google, everywhere! Google is quickly becoming as ubiquitous as Microsoft, just with a promise to "not be evil".
Now many people have concerns about privacy. Much of what I do on Google's services is stored somewhere on Google's servers, and could possibly be read and used by them. Storing the password for your online banking on a Google server is probably not a good idea. Although it is probably safer to store it there than on a post-it glued to your screen, and I bet there are thousands of people doing that.
But after a careful consideration of privacy issues by using all different Google services, I realized that all what I am likely to do there is inherently safe for a very mundane reason: my data aren't worth stealing or spying on. Neither are yours, in all likelyhood. An online calendar service is unlikely to have entries like "September 11th: Fly plane into World Trade Center", but rather more likely to contain your dentist appointments and a reminder to not forget you mom's birthday. And frankly, nobody is interested in that. Even if you put your secret liaison with your secretary in your calendar, the only one possibly interested in that would be your wife, while the guys from Google or the Department of Homeland Security couldn't care less. Your mail or blog might contain critical entries about people, for example your boss, but as long as the criticized person isn't reading your blog, nobody is going to care. Not even if you rant about George Bush is somebody likely to come after you. Face it, your life is a boring as mine, and if a guild drama in World of Warcraft is the most interesting thing happening in your life, your data are perfectly safe from snooping.
- posted by Tobold @ 5:19 PM Permanent Link
Comments:
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I'm not too sure about all this Googlisation. I don't think Google are evil any more than I think Microsoft are evil. I do think that once a company attains such a dominant market position it is an inevitable consequence of business reality that they will take steps to maintain their market dominance and enhance their profitability which steps will ultimately hinder innovation, restrict customer freedom, and inflate the true cost to the customer of using the product or service.
Google's market dominance in the field of online service provision is in many ways more troubling than Microsoft's dominance of the core pc software market. Even today it is probably true that just about every detail of my life could be gleaned from information stored by Microsoft programs. At least this information is stored for the most part in private files on private computers. If I were to embrace the Google vision all of this information would be stored on servers under the direct control of one company. My life is no more exciting than yours Tobold and I am sure the minutae of life would make very boring reading but you are wrong to say that no one would be interested in this information. This is exactly the type of information that would be enormously helpful to repressive governments in keeping their citizens under control, to organised criminals in exploiting and defrauding individuals and to bad minded folk of all types who whould like to do you harm.
I am not suggesting that Google would voluntarily hand your private information over to the Mafia but any organisation's security can be breached and do you really think that Google could maintain the privacy of its databases if a major government demanded access?
Google's market dominance in the field of online service provision is in many ways more troubling than Microsoft's dominance of the core pc software market. Even today it is probably true that just about every detail of my life could be gleaned from information stored by Microsoft programs. At least this information is stored for the most part in private files on private computers. If I were to embrace the Google vision all of this information would be stored on servers under the direct control of one company. My life is no more exciting than yours Tobold and I am sure the minutae of life would make very boring reading but you are wrong to say that no one would be interested in this information. This is exactly the type of information that would be enormously helpful to repressive governments in keeping their citizens under control, to organised criminals in exploiting and defrauding individuals and to bad minded folk of all types who whould like to do you harm.
I am not suggesting that Google would voluntarily hand your private information over to the Mafia but any organisation's security can be breached and do you really think that Google could maintain the privacy of its databases if a major government demanded access?
I ran across a weapon in EQ that bore the pronoun of a character in my WoW Guild, and he had, to my mind, an unusual name, so I googled both his character's names to see what I might find.
A day or so later our Guild Leader posted data on our Forum showing the googling of the names. I live in California, he lives in North Carolina. It just blew my mind. My google search results were public knowledge. Scary stuff for those who know how to obtain it.
A day or so later our Guild Leader posted data on our Forum showing the googling of the names. I live in California, he lives in North Carolina. It just blew my mind. My google search results were public knowledge. Scary stuff for those who know how to obtain it.
Two Comments:
What if the most interesting thing happening in my life rates *below* guild drama in WoW?
You need to read this article on Google. It should put you in a sufficiently-paranoid state of mind: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070119_001510.html
What if the most interesting thing happening in my life rates *below* guild drama in WoW?
You need to read this article on Google. It should put you in a sufficiently-paranoid state of mind: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070119_001510.html
# posted by 
: 8/2/07 18:55
: 8/2/07 18:55
Honestly Tob it's got a lot to do with hackers.
I was talking with a friend of mine today who was wanting me to set up and administer a website for him (with database) and I told him it just flat wasn't worth it. If you want to use any online software that allows you to share information with others - and if you DON'T want your life to turn into a 24/7 battle against hackers - you turn to a service like google.
I used to run my guild site all on my own with php - till I got hacked. Then I realized I could do everything I wanted to do with Blogger.com and Proboards and I never looked back.
Hell - let Google fool with the hackers. I ain't got time for that sh*t.
I was talking with a friend of mine today who was wanting me to set up and administer a website for him (with database) and I told him it just flat wasn't worth it. If you want to use any online software that allows you to share information with others - and if you DON'T want your life to turn into a 24/7 battle against hackers - you turn to a service like google.
I used to run my guild site all on my own with php - till I got hacked. Then I realized I could do everything I wanted to do with Blogger.com and Proboards and I never looked back.
Hell - let Google fool with the hackers. I ain't got time for that sh*t.
Another take on the Google dominance: "Epic 2015. A flash movie predicting a future where Google takes control of our lives.
I got to agree with you Tobold. I don't really care, my life is as mundane as yours so what if someone knows I have a dentist appointment?
The power Google has to combine stuff has paid off in the combat of spam. Since I have switched to Gmail I hardly have any spam. The ability to analyse tons of emails makes identifying spam so much easier. I don't care if an automated process scans my email. I don't pay to much attention to the advertisements related to the contents of my mails, it's a very small price to pay for having that same automated process to filter spam from my mail.
I got to agree with you Tobold. I don't really care, my life is as mundane as yours so what if someone knows I have a dentist appointment?
The power Google has to combine stuff has paid off in the combat of spam. Since I have switched to Gmail I hardly have any spam. The ability to analyse tons of emails makes identifying spam so much easier. I don't care if an automated process scans my email. I don't pay to much attention to the advertisements related to the contents of my mails, it's a very small price to pay for having that same automated process to filter spam from my mail.
# posted by : 9/2/07 08:05
: 9/2/07 08:05
But you are not using Google Analytics for your blog statistics!
And I also suppose you don't use the Google toolbar on your browser, or you wouldn't need the pagerank icon on the bottom of your pages.
I do not like the Google Personalized homepages, I prefer much more netvibes.com
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And I also suppose you don't use the Google toolbar on your browser, or you wouldn't need the pagerank icon on the bottom of your pages.
I do not like the Google Personalized homepages, I prefer much more netvibes.com
# posted by : 9/2/07 10:43
: 9/2/07 10:43<< Home
