Google Page Creator
p2p news / p2pnet: One way or another, Google is determined to get your data. If it was indeed Google the Good with an operative motto of Do No Evil, there’d be no cause for concern. But there are already privacy problems with its just-launched Desktop 3, and it looks as though it’s organizing its own Google Net, not to mention the continuing Google/China censorship scandal.
And that, in turn, suggests it’s definitely time to err on the side of caution with its latest offering – Google Page Creator – as well as with other old and new ‘free’ products.
This time around, Google even tries to lure you into handing over your mobile phone number, promising it, “will never be sold or shared for marketing purposes without your permission …”
But what about other purposes? Can it be trusted? Would it hand your personal data over to George W. Bush, say, or some other ‘authority,’ under the right circumstances?
Its privacy policy states:
“Google does comply with valid legal process, such as search warrants, court orders, or subpoenas seeking personal information. These same processes apply to all law-abiding companies. As has always been the case, the primary protections you have against intrusions by the government are the laws that apply to where you live” – unless you happen to live in China, of course.
Meanwhile, Google Page Creator is a, “free online tool that makes it easy for anyone to create and publish useful, attractive web pages in just minutes,” says the company.
“Google already hosts blogs through its Blogger service; photos via Picasa; e-mail sent to Gmail accounts; video uploaded to Google Video,” Internet News points out, “and all sorts of miscellaneous files uploaded to Google Base.”
Google Base – hmmmm.
“The company has not yet set a date to bring this feature out of beta; instead, the company said it is waiting on consumer feedback in order to integrate future updates and improvements,” says PC Magazine.
Here’s the url for feedback – http://www.google.com/support/pages/bin/request.py.
February 24th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
Google as far as I am conserned, has done no evil…
data collection, in the way that google does it, is mostly annoymous facts and numbers… not names and such…
I wont approve of you bad mouthing google… unless they start getting into monopoly lawsuits and the kind of evil BS Microsoft pulls every week… Most of what Google does it free… Where as Microsoft is expensive, and they force you to buy a LOT more than you need… god there is no way to list all the crap MS has done… Some google privacy conserns are nothing to worry about… your all just paranoid…
February 24th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
just use google as a ssearch engine and dont use any of its software – problem solved!
February 24th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Even if you do only that, they still keep track of every single search made from your IP. Personally, I couldn’t care less but those among us who are paranoid about their privacy (you know who you are) then it would appear that Google may be able to tie together a vast array of personal information about it’s users. It would be feasible that Google could, if given proper motivation, would be able to create an almost complete personal, physical & psychological profile of some of it’s more ardent users. And all legally too as they have agreed to all the terms and conditions by using the tools in the first place.
Imagine, mugshots of you and all your friends, pictures of the places you have visited and videos of what you got up to while you were there, your thoughts and feelings all blogged out, private conversations with friends and co-workers, search habits and even shopping habits are all linked together in Google’s vast databases… But it’s just so damn useful