This article sounds like the something a "98% fat free chips" bonehead ad exec would come up with. Listen to yourself.
Recording 2% of user's keystroke?
You should be ashamed to do anything less than condemn Chrome for the spyware it is.
Are google paying you?
98% spyware free is still free spyware.
Google bows to keystroke privacy concerns
Summary
To quell privacy fears, Google says IP addresses and other data stored through use of Google Suggest will be rendered anonymous within a day.
Topics
See all ZDNet Chrome coverage.
Google says it will anonymize user data received through search requests entered in the company's search engine and Chrome browser.
In response to concerns over privacy, Google announced on Monday that it would render the data anonymous within 24 hours of it being gathered. Writing on the official Google blog, senior vice president of operations Urs Hölzle also noted that the data was, in any case, of "limited potential use" to Google.
The data in question is that gathered through use of Google Suggest, the service that provides a dropdown menu of suggested queries as a user types a query into Google's search engine, or into Chrome's 'Omnibox'. Suggest does this by logging keystrokes as they are made, then offering a list of possible auto-completions of what has been typed.
In 98 percent of search requests made using Suggest, no data is stored at all. According to Hölzle, in the remaining two percent of cases--selected randomly by Google--data, such as IP addresses, is stored so that the company can "monitor and improve the service".
"Given the concerns that have been raised about Google storing this information--and its limited potential use--we [have] decided that we will anonymise it within about 24 hours (basically, as soon as we practically can) in the two percent of Google Suggest requests we use," wrote Hölzle. "This will take a little time to implement, but we expect it to be in place before the end of the month."
Google Suggest has been around since 2004, but interest in its privacy implications was revived last week when the company launched Chrome, its open-source browser.
Chrome's URL box is called the Omnibox because it also doubles as a search bar. In default settings, that search functionality is set to use Google Suggest.
Some, such as Germany's Federal Bureau for Information Technology Security, have voiced discomfort at the amount of user information Google is now able to gather since Chrome's launch, given that the company also has significant market share in the email and search markets.
Talkback Most Recent of 5 Talkback(s)
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topsecret@...10th Sep 2008 -
RE: Google bows to keystroke privacy concerns
Why do people care so much about their search queries being stored in a mainframe along with literally billions of others? Every purchase you make is logged by your credit card company, you're on CCTV every store you walk into, and people go to the trouble of making every aspect of their lives available on facebook. If you want industrial-grade privacy the internet will provide you the tools to do it free. But Oh, no, google is watching me trying to show me ADDS for products I might actually be interested in!
matazar42@...10th Sep 2008 -
RE: Google bows to keystroke privacy concerns
This article is pathetic, as is Google.
'We'll only record 2% of people's keystrokes'. This should have them under DOJ scrutiny, oh wait, they FINALLY are!
Pat
omdguy10th Sep 2008 -
RE: Google bows to keystroke privacy concerns
I think people who fixate on privacy and are scared someone will log where they go on the internet and what they search for are doing things they know are sick or illegal- searching for that xtra large butt-plug? child porn? donkey-sex-show? closet homo? selling drugs? That's why you're scared. For me, I don't give a crap if anyone reads my emails or sees where I go.
Hugh Jardon12th Sep 2008 -
We find out that chrome is actually a keylogger and....
now we're supposed to take their word for it? Burn me once shame on you burn me twice shame on me.
Not that it matter's Google has more power than the government now.
Breetai12th Sep 2008
Talkback - Tell Us What You Think
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