Privacy watchdog group: Google Desktop Huge Security Risk

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,184483,00.html

A high-profile privacy watchdog group has a terse warning for business and consumers: Do not use the new version of Google Desktop.

The nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation said a new feature added to Google Desktop on Feb. 9 is a serious privacy and security risk because of the way a user's data is stored on Google's servers.

The new "Share Across Computers" feature stores Web browsing history, Microsoft Office documents, PDF and text files on Google's servers to allow a user to run remote searches from multiple computers. But according to the EFF, this presents a lucrative target to malicious hackers.

"We urge consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password," the EFF said in a statement. Google says it has to store the data on its own servers to deal with situations when one of a user's computers may be turned off or otherwise be offline when new or updated items are indexed on a different machine. "We store this data temporarily on Google Desktop servers and automatically delete older flies, and your data is never accessible by anyone doing a Google search," the Web search giant insists.

[Wilms]

1. I never would have thought.

:sarcasm:

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

2. Some people install this crap without taking a second look...

...and automatically "trusting" any software usually results in the person getting what they deserved.