This entry was posted on Friday, June 9th, 2006 at 14:26 and is filed under Analysis & Commentary, Security, Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Friday, June 9, 2006
Google has just released its Browser Sync for Firefox users which brings an amazing and powerful feature to Firefox: full synchronization of bookmarks, opened tabs, history, settings, and even cookies. All of it. Doesn’t matter if you have two, three, or fifteen computes with Firefox, they’ll all sync with each other. Heck, it doesn’t even matter if you have Mac, Red Hat box, or Windows98, because they all will sync with each other, too. Now the only catch is that you can’t have more than one browser open at a time (Google Browser Sync will notify an “old” session that another session has started and disconnect the old session browser.) But is that the only catch?
When SvenOnTech sniffed the terms of service page, we found an interesting few sentences. It reads, near the bottom, “You understand and agree that Google may or may not pre-screen Content and shall have the right (but not the obligation) in its sole discretion to pre-screen, refuse or move any Content available via Google services. You also understand and agree that you nonetheless may be exposed to such conduct and/or Content and that you use the Extensions at your own risk.”
Now while this doesn’t mean Google will sale your information and all, it does mean it will look at it and if you’re in, say China, it’ll do things to it. Maybe dump it; maybe send it to the red commies themselves. But if you read more, you do find that the Google law staff was really smart and opened it up even more to legal interpretation and stated that its general terms of service applied as well, with a link to that page. With that catch-all, all your information is basically open to being searched and indexed just like your Google Mail and Google Calendar. True, Google specifies that it will not sale your information, but hey, do you really want this mega-company knowing all your information? It’s not just about your links to some questionable places that you may like to visit or maybe confidential client information but rather your cache, settings, and cookies. It’s all Google’s to search and index.
This has been the major reason I don’t use my GMail account. I can’t imagine all that e-mail of mine being tucked away into an index server for a rainy day. You GCal users should be scared, too. But hey, if you’re cool with all this, than by all means, go get it. It is a neat download for sure and I’m sure Google has all your rights in interest. I mean, they sure are doing a great job in China, right?
June 10th, 2006 at 6:32
‘sale’ is not a verb. Just no two ways about it.
June 11th, 2006 at 18:09
I use the gmail for things like responing to your article. I am glad you point this out to people. But this is a population that uses workplace accounts and computers for all kinds of personal things. This is a population that does not care about the government tapping home and work phones and reading personal email.