Friday, March 31, 2006

GOOGLE'S IMPERIAL ASPIRATIONS Zdnet: "First it was China, now it's genetics; Google is in hot water with privacy advocates again. Search giant Google has been accused of being the 'biggest threat to genetic privacy' for its alleged plan to create a searchable database of genetic information. Biopiracy refers to the monopolisation of genetic resources. It is also defined as the unauthorised use of biological resources by organisations such as corporations, universities and governments." Wired: "When Google began testing a payment system in February for Google Base, its virtual catalog product, Internet pundits assumed the company was moving ahead with efforts to go head-to-head with eBay, the online marketplace giant." News.com: "Google is setting up a political operation in Washington and collecting big-name lobbyists with Republican connections faster than you can search the Web for Jack Abramoff." While I was cleaning up my gmail account today I deleted a lot of large files and noticed that the space used did not diminish at all. So I did an internet search and my hunch was right. "Google's privacy policy says deleted e-mail messages 'may remain in our offline backup systems' in perpetuity. It does not guarantee that backups are ever deleted." See also here. So, in fact, Google owns your mail. 11:07:45 AM

© Copyright 2006 Hetty Litjens.