EFF: Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation

Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release

For Immediate Release: Thursday, February 09, 2006

Contact:

Kevin Bankston
   Staff Attorney
   Electronic Frontier Foundation
   bankston@eff.org
   +1 415 436-9333 x126

Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in
Anticipation

Consumers Should Not Use New Google Desktop

San Francisco - Google today 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 Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other
text-based documents on Google's own servers, to enable
searching from any one 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."

For more on Google's data collection:
http://news.com.com/FAQ+When+Google+is+not+your+friend/21...
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/01/21/goo...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle...
http://news.com.com/%20Bill+would+force+Web+sites+to+dele...

For this release:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_02.php#004400

About EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil
liberties organization working to protect rights in the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and
challenges industry and government to support free
expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported
organization and maintains one of the most linked-to
websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/

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