Consumers Should Not Use New Google Desktop

San Francisco Google announced a new "feature" of its
Google Desktop software that greatly increases the risk to
consumer privacy. If a consumer chooses to use it, the new
"Search Across Computers" feature will store copies of the
user's computers. EFF urges 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.

"Coming on the heels of serious consumer concern about
government snooping into Google's search logs, it's shocking
that Google expects its users to now trust it with the
contents of their personal computers," said EFF Staff
Attorney Kevin Bankston. "Unless you configure Google
Desktop very carefully, and few people will, Google will
have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business
records, financial and medical files, and whatever other
text-based documents the Desktop software can index. The
government could then demand these personal files with only
a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to
seize the same things from your home or business, and in
many cases you wouldn't even be notified in time to
challenge it. Other litigants--your spouse, your business
partners or rivals, whomever--could also try to cut out the
middleman (you) and subpoena Google for your files."

The privacy problem arises because the Electronic
Communication Privacy Act of 1986, or ECPA, gives only
limited privacy protection to emails and other files that
are stored with online service providers--much less privacy
than the legal protections for the same information when
it's on your computer at home. And even that lower level of
legal protection could disappear if Google uses your data
for marketing purposes. Google says it is not yet scanning
the files it copies from your hard drive in order to serve
targeted advertising, but it hasn't ruled out the
possibility, and Google's current privacy policy appears to
allow it.

"This Google product highlights a key privacy problem in the
digital age," said Cindy Cohn, EFF's Legal Director. "Many
Internet innovations involve storing personal files on a
service provider's computer, but under outdated laws,
consumers who want to use these new technologies have to
surrender their privacy rights. If Google wants consumers to
trust it to store copies of personal computer files, emails,
search histories and chat logs, and still 'not be evil,' it
should stand with EFF and demand that Congress update the
privacy laws to better reflect life in the wired world."

Google can and should design its technologies to avoid these
problems in the first place. For example, searching across
computers can be accomplished without Google having to keep
copies of those computers' contents. Alternatively, Google
could encrypt the stored data such that only the user has
access.

"Google constantly touts its creative brainpower. More
privacy-protective technologies are surely not beyond its
reach, so long as its engineers make that a design
priority," added Bankston.

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