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Google Chrome -- key reasons for its debut

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Ehtyar:
Lots of folks had concerns about Gmail for a while, but now just about everyone has an account.
-zridling (September 03, 2008, 06:59 PM)
--- End quote ---
Where does everyone get the impression that past injustices that go unpunished warrant further misplaced trust?

Ehtyar.

zridling:
Ehtyar, what injustices exactly? I'm not aware of them. If you're just now concerned with [online service] email, then you're way late to the game. How many services have come and gone over the years -- AOL, MSN, Yahoo, MyRealBox, the original Hotmail, etc.?

Google has never correlated user data with user identity, or with the search terms people input. This can be done through cookies and IP addresses. For example, any spam filter has to 'read' the email in order to determine its junk status. And remember, Gmail is more than a mere mail program, it pushes ads and encourages more search (to push more ad revenue). Heck, run the traceroute command at a command prompt on any Linux system (including Mac OS X) or tracert on a Windows system to see the hops that your internet packets go through from your machine to any destination site. Anyone equipped with a packet sniffer at any of those sites can snoop any mail that they want. In fact, the NSA recently proved the effectiveness of this approach by tracking down terrorists by way of their mail traffic.

Privacy is always a slippery slope. But we're already a long way down that slope, and I have a lot more trust in Google to do the right thing to protect my privacy than I have in banking institutions, credit card, and direct marketing companies! (How does every company know that I have a small penis, for example!) The reason I do is because Google could have violated that trust long ago, but hasn't. They still may, but I certainly don't see why Google is being singled out. For me, there are so many bigger issues to worry about, from RFID tagging (see the recent Mythbusters post here on DC) to surveillance cameras on city streets and highways, that programmed scanning of email for targeted ad insertion doesn't seem like too big a deal to me, especially when it's disclosed up front to willing participants in the service.

kartal:
Zridling,

Google is singled out because Google has become a data octopus. Your bank knows your bank records, they do not know what contacts you have on your phone or what your plan is next week. Your phone company may know your calls and contacts but they do not know about your purchasing history(they would pay millions to ge thou)  or what you watch on youtube. Now every company has only one side of the picture. On the other hand Google has many sides of the picture by search, email, map,health records, google checkout, book search, calendar, youtube, driving directions, you name it. It is conducting masssive data mining to figure out who you are and what you might be interested in to sell you more ads. That is very very legitimate concern aand noone should be this powerful. Sooner or later Google will abuse its power like every powerful entity in the world or world history. When it comes to for profit entities, abuse will be unquestionable result especially when we have corrupt politicians, legalized bribing(lobbies), and every kinds of social-national scares and paranoias(boogey man will get you that is why we shared your info to save you and your privacy bullsh$t)

On the otherhand, as a company Google is an abstract structure. When I say Google may act in harmful way when it comes to privacy, i do not mean this abstract being only. One worker at Google may steal all this data, there might be a security breach, spammers may hack Google etc. These are all possible scenarios and one might get ready for it.

I am neither a freak nor a tinfoil hat person. In my view like all good human beings I deserve respectful treatment of myself and my entity that represents me in any possible media. This is not a matter of conspiracy this is rather asking for a better future for mankind. If you never care for your rights you will never get them.But please do not cast shadow on those who ask for it. Trying to riducule meaningful rights is rather childish.

Darwin:
Wow! Well said Kartal! Time will tell, I suppose how justified our paranoia is, but I'm erring on the side of caution.

allen:
... and now I often see ads that I find interesting. Still don't click them, but they sure are more enticing than a decade ago.  I can't wait til Google releases a GPS, and it can tailor my route from point A to B, passing things that I *love* all the way there. And I really want adsense powered television. If I have to see commercials on something I already pay for, I want to see commercials tailored to my states based on more than just the channel genre.

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