InsideGoogle

Google Desktop Vs. Corporate IT

Silicon.com takes a look at some corporate IT departments that are worried about employees installing the latest version of Google Desktop Search on their systems. They worry that their corporate data is getting transferred over to Google’s servers, and rightfully so.

Analyst Gartner last week warned that the ’search across computers’ feature on the latest version of Google Desktop poses an “unacceptable risk” to many organisations because it allows people to share information and also stores some of that data on Google servers.

Richard Steel, head of ICT at Newham, said: “This is because Newham data will be copied onto Google servers and kept there indefinitely. There is no contract in place between Newham and Google for secure data handling, and under their terms and conditions, they retain the right to search the data for their own purposes.”

Now, we’ve all heard the arguements that Desktop doesn’t steal your data, that you have to turn on the feature yourself, but the fact of the matter is, there are a huge number of companies that simply don’t want you taking the files on your work computer and storing them anywhere else, let alone on the servers of another major corporation.

This isn’t about privacy, or about Google, but about simple network policies. There are many programs that allow you to do things that your company’s IT department doesn’t want you doing, either out of paranoia or policy. It’s usually a bad idea to go against that, and I think you’ll find more companies uninstalling and banning desktop search in the future.
(via Slashdot)

March 5th, 2006 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Controversy, Products, Desktop, Desktop Search, General | 2 comments