Google Slips Talk of Online Storage Service

sonsonete writes "Reuters reports that Google is preparing to offer online storage, according to company documents that were mistakenly released on the Web. From the piece: 'The existence of the previously rumored GDrive online storage service surfaced after a blogger discovered apparent notes in a slide presentation by Google executives published on Google's site after its analysts presentation day last Thursday.'"

Comments

Concept vs. Reality

[ackthpt]

In principle, not a bad thing, considering Jane & Joe CtrlAltDel don't usually make backups and probably hardly come close to the actual capacity of their hard drives. Not likely to be a realistic consideration for Slashdotters who count their media, development tools, etc in the terabytes, though.

But there's the worry that if Google did this, how long before the Bureau of National Security Over Privacy and All Else presses Google to make content of this online storage available to the FBI? RIAA? MPAA? Cheney Department of Vindictive Leaks?

Google recently squared up against the U.S. Justice Department which has subpoenaed a limited set of data on Google search habits, drawing an outcry from privacy advocates.

It's thought provoking, certainly. Then there's the inevitable:

Google, Inc.
1600 Ampitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Dear GDrive user, we are very concerned about recent activity with regard to your account. Please verify you User ID at the following link. www.google.com/accounts[links to: update.google-account.info/idpasswdstealer.html]

Remember never to give out your User ID or Password to people you don't know, those who spit while talking, people who do not wash their hands after using the lavatory, wombat ranchers, msn fanboys or anyone with the middle initial of J.

Best regards,
Google Internet Security
Google, Inc.

I'll pass.

It slipped out

[truthsearch]

Let's hope the stuff from your GDrive doesn't end up all over the internet like this presentation!

Encryption

[Neil Watson]

Encrypt your files.

Re:Encryption

[drgonzo59]

Of course, to NSA/FBI/CIA your encrypted GDrive that holds tax documents and family photos will look like it holds al Qaeda training manuals. So when the CIA takes you to Egypt for some fun interrogation and put a knife to your neck, you'll happily give them your passphrase so they can see what's on your GDrive.

Remember, the idea of a honest executive branch that will got to a court to get a permission to spy on you, or that you will get a speedy trial, or even a lawyer is history. Through fear we have allowed the government to become what it is now, blame the neo-conservatives for that if you want. Watch the "Power Of Nightmares" movie, I just saw it two days ago, quite enlightening, not totally objective but nevertheless it was worth my time (3 hours).

Their Objective

[rolfwind]

From the article:

"With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc)," the notes in the original Google presentation state.

Chief Executive Eric Schmidt in his presentation made a cryptic comment that one goal of Google was to "store 100 percent" of consumer information.

What is so damned cryptic about that? This has been google's strategy from the beginning, the more info they have about you, the users - the better they can market to you, the users.

I would be worried, of course, about the obvious bad possibilities that can from from this unprecedented access this gives google to our info. But that discussion has been played out with every google took.

Re:Why give everything to google?

[Telastyn]

As opposed to trusting all of the intermediaries between you and google? Personally, I trust google to protect my privacy far more than say... Comcast, who has direct unencrypted access to every non-ssl web browsing session, gmail use, or email sent.