Last week, Google released an early version of their Google Desktop Search tool. It has been lauded as a great way to be able to find information on your own computer (rather than the entire Internet as you do at google.com) by loading GDS on your computer and indexing every file: document, spreadsheet, temporary Internet file, chat room log file, virtually everything. While that seems like a great tool, there are security concerns being raised by users who share their computer with anyone else. Because there is no security built in to the software, the search tool is able to work through email and temporary files opened by another user. This becomes an issue if you were to use a computer in such places as the business center of a hotel or airport. If the Google Desktop Search tool is loaded on that machine and you don’t realize it, most everything you do on that machine is indexed into the GDS database. Once you leave that machine, your information may be viewed by others who use the search tool. If you are the only user of your computer, there probably isn’t much reason for concern. Google has made it clear that the company cannot access your database remotely even if they needed to in the case of a subpoena. In time, Google and the other potential desktop search creators, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, AskJeeves, will improve privacy and security in order to take advantage of this exciting new technology. |
