Liverpool Defy ID | OtherNews / Google Plans To Store Contents Of Users' Computers

CommercialDatabases | Technology

Search giant Google accidentally leaked discussion of its plan for a massive data storage facility which would back up the entirety of users' computer hard drives.

No doubt it would be marketed as being for the convenience of the computer owner - i.e. they wouldn't need to worry about losing their data if something happened to their computer, because Google would have it all stored.

But the potential for data mining and invasion of privacy is staggering - your files and data could be trawled by Google, or government snoops or whoever, at their leisure.

Liverpool Defy ID says: take responsibility for your own back-ups (any wise computer user already does!) - get an external hard drive, there are plenty available that have enough capacity to back up all the files on the average computer!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/08/google_spooks_gdrive/

Google wants to mirror and index every byte of your hard drive, relegating your PC to a "cache", notes on a company PowerPoint presentation reveal.

The file accompanied part of Google's analyst day last week. Google has since withdrawn the file, telling the BBC that the information was not intended for publication.

The justification for this enormous data grab is that Google would be able to restore your data after a catastrophic system failure.

The notes reveal a plan to -

"Store 100% of User Data

... 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)."

Perhaps it's Google's gift to the US government. In August 2003, Admiral John M Poindexter was forced to resign after his 'Total Information Awareness' data mining program was revealed to be indexing "everyday transactions as credit card purchases, travel reservations and e-mail."

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