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Google Never Forgets
downsize writes "CNN.com is running an article that provides some insight into how long Google stores our search, email and overall web activity and posits that it 'could prove a tempting target for abuse.' From the article: 'Some don't see Google's long memory as a bad thing. Weinstein doesn't think so. "There's really no good reason to hold onto that information for more than a few months," he said. "They seem to think that because their motives are pure that everything is OK and they can operate on a trust basis. History tells us that is not the case."' In regards to Google's email service, Gmail, Google may find themselves with many upset users due to 'a 1986 law [that] gives less protection from government searches to messages more than six months old...Even when a user deletes a message it may remain on company servers, according to the Gmail privacy policy.' Same goes for POP mail, just because you download it off the server, it's not 'out of Google's long memory'."
Does google do business in those countries, and does it follow their laws?
This is all something we accept when we click "OK" to Google's TOS, without even reading it. If you don't like it, you can always use some other alternative, no guarantees that it will be able to match up with what Google can provide.
With that said, who is to say other companies don't do the same thing? You honestly think once you delete an email with another service, say, Hotmail, it is instantly evaporated off their servers? Of course not.
I can understand the concern over storing deleted email. But, keeping caches of web content is a bad thing? Some (like me) would argue that deleting old, cached content would be analogous to burning books. The more history, the better if you ask me.
sig: sauer
Everyone should always assume that anything they post on the internet will be somewhere forever. Any email they send or receive might well be duplicated somewhere else as well.
I guess we're going to find out if things like google searches are going to bite people in the future or not. This feels like Patriot Act stuff to me, potentially, they way that libraries and book stores can be required to provide information about your reading habits. As a writer, I really don't like it. What if I want to write a book featuring terrorist villians, and do a lot of "suspicious" searches doing my research?
It's troubling to me.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
Keep in mind Google's motto is: "Do No Evil". Making it possible for others to do evil is thus acceptable under the terms of the motto.
Google is allowing you to use their equipment to do searches and you're surprised they're keeping the results?!
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Why does Google set cookies on www.google.com when you access your gmail account? For the purpose of session tracking setting cookies only on gmail.google.com is sufficient.
Obviously, it's done the searches you later do on www.google.com can be tracked. Don't believe in that "we do no evil" crap, Google is to be trusted no more than any other for-profit corporation.
The article may have a point. Of course, that point is it's own counterpoint. How often have people used things like Google's cached copy of data or the Wayback Machine to prove that a company really did say or claim something after they'd removed or altered the claim and denied ever saying/claiming the original? Google's long memory cuts both ways, and I think it's too useful for keeping track of things to give it up just because it might track my things. And of course it can also be used to counter people who might claim I changed my tune or concealed something when I didn't.
But really, if I wasn't keeping the email on Google's servers, it would be on my own hard drive, which if the Government is going to serve a search warrant on Google, they could just as easily raid my house.
Yes, you could say my hard drive would be encrypted, or the Goverment could subpoena Google rather than serve a search warrant, but then, you shouldn't be doing anything illegal through a public company anyway, let alone in plain-text.
In summary, I find Gmail's interface and features worth the risk.
On today's front page so far we've had:
OSS: Europe vs. the USA
Gaming: Nintendo vs. Sony
Gaming: PCs vs. Consoles
Gaming: Sex & Gender vs. Gender
Platforms: Apple vs. Intel combined with MAC vs. Linux.
Google: New feature
Google: Owns all your data, again.
Linux & Apache: Used by popular (real) news site (wow).
Next up:
Flames vs. Yawns vs. News, the slashdot version of Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Sure, this is a troll, flame whatever. But isn't that what we do here lately?
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Most of Google's magic is really data mining the semantic data from the Internet.
Gmail is nothing more than an attempt at getting a massive corpus of data on which to let their algorithms loose.
I really think that, while there is potential for abuse, this is really the only way to tackle their problem space. After all, Google doesn't really rank web sites, people do. It's just that Google has some really clever ways for determining that people liked a web site.
Sometimes it relates to webs of links, sometimes it relates to combinations of words, but Google's software doesn't deal in semantics--only algorithmically generating statistics from the data generated by people.
I don't worry so much about Google, I worry about our future AI overlords. Although, if a truly scalable Artificial Intelligence ever gets Internet access, I fear it has the potential to know us better than we do.
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)
Google caching web pages for decades is really an interesting practice. I know I have found sites and images cached in Google that have long since gone from their original locations. They are like ghosts in the night, or like finding an empty treasure chest that wasn't on the map.
As for caching email, though, I don't see why everyone gets so uptight over privacy. Your emails are still quite private. I doubt there are many people at Google with access to the information, and even if they could read all your email I have to think it would be a singularly boring pursuit.
The US Government can still look at your mail, though. So? If you don't do anything illegal it won't matter. These people already know your tax information. They know your social security number. They know all the places you have lived and all the cars you have owned. They know all the crimes you have been convicted for. They know all of this because of services they provide.
If you're doing nothing wrong, it's unlikely the government will request your emails. And even if they do, you're safe. They aren't going to care about personal anecdotes, and they already have most of the information they would find. On the other hand, if you actually are doing something illegal, I would hope you had a better way to communicate about it than email. There are lots of programs which offer encrypted instant messaging. There's a plugin for Gaim to use it, and there are personal network clients like WASTE with encrypted chat capabilities. You could even create a Yahoo account with false information. So be illegal on those, and not on Gmail.
Computers need to explode more often.
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?topic=217 Sorry, search is down at the moment. Until it's back up, you may wish to search Slashdot through Google:
rewriting history since 2109
Time to clean up your cookies between searching and using other Google services...
http://www.imilly.com/google-cookie.htm
Using this "your Google GUID will be reset to all zeroes, making you effectively anonymous to Google - all the while automatically keeping your saved preferences (such as language, filtering, number of results, etc)."
"I have a cunning plan..."
* Everyone knew what Google had planned for the GMail archives (other logs/files notwithstanding) and were OK with it in exchange for mail serach, capacity, and easy-on-the-eyes text ads
* Isn't this nearly the same thing as AdSense anyway? How is using the logs to set up advertising links any different than how it works now with AdSense?
* Everyone was cool with Google because of how their ads are clearly ads, and are simple texty affairs. If this model provides them the funding they need to be the awesome free service they are, what do you care?
GTRacer
- How is long memory a bad thing again?
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
A lack of history is an invention of big city. Anyone who has lived in a small town knows what it means to have your history (and that of your neighbors) known.
In some ways this is an example of techonlogy bringing us full circle.
There is another path I suppose. You could create a new troll. But few of us are worthy enough to do such a thing.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.