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Google Desktop Search Functions As Spyware
dioscaido writes "Users of the Google Desktop Search software beware -- it indexes your files across all users on your PC, bypassing user protections. The Google cache feature allows all users to browse the contents of messages and files it has indexed, irrespective of who is logged in. 'This is not a bug, rather a feature,' says Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer Web products. 'Google Desktop Search is not intended to be used on computers that are shared with more than one person.'" Reminds me of a Neal Stephenson essay: "The Hole Hawg is dangerous because it does exactly what you tell it to. It is not bound by the physical limitations that are inherent in a cheap drill, and neither is it limited by safety interlocks that might be built into a homeowner's product by a liability-conscious manufacturer. The danger lies not in the machine itself but in the user's failure to envision the full consequences of the instructions he gives to it."
Suddenly I'm not so bothered that there's no Mac version!
goog up 2 bucks on the news
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Like windows.......
That was too easy, ignore my post.
I can't remember. Is Google good or evil these days? Or is it an every-other day thing?
Jealous, are we? ;)
~m
Does it phone home, sending entire indexes of your harddrive to google?
Yeah, then it kills your entire family and rapes your dog. Not being evil isn't as easy as it sounds I guess.
Now I can share all those important email attachments people keep sending me!
It would be cool if you could put txts and docs into a special folder acessible to the outside world.
Gee, if only someone could make some kind of program that could make files on your computer accessible to the outside world.
What?
Anyone remember when the privacy hounds were out about GMail perpetually storing your mail, and that a *gasp* computer would actually read it! Reminds me exactly of this. Of course, they'll come out and clarify it later, but by then the damage will be done. Oh well.
Well, that is a problem if you believe Google is already being run exclusively by machines, all profits from the company being used to build this huge machine city smack dab in the middle of Israel, which would grow so badly that we'd have to kill the sky and live one last rave party underground in the caves of Zion.
"Four precesses should be enough for anyone."