Comments on: Google Browser Sync – privacy kiss of death? http://niklasblog.com/?p=986 Giddup-a! Geddondown-a! Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:52:31 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Niklas http://niklasblog.com/?p=986&cpage=1#comment-8333 Niklas Thu, 08 Jun 2006 19:13:37 +0000 http://niklasblog.com/?p=986#comment-8333 First: \"We offer some of our services in connection with other web sites.\" This may very well mean that they forward info to third parties. Second: \"In some cases, we may process personal information on behalf of and according to the instructions of a third party, such as our advertising partners.\" This <i>means</i> they <i>are</i> using \"personal information on behalf of and according to the instructions of a third party\". As it is unclear to which \"third paragraphy\" you are referring, I hereby guess it\'s the one starting with \"This Privacy Policy\"; Google are hereby saying they actually don\'t care much what their partners do to collect your data, or, indeed, do with it. I hope their level of encryption leaves everybody (including the US government, even though I think this, sadly, is not the case) other than the submitting user out of the data, but I\'d like to see more info on this before I collect my thoughts further on the subject. A Google PGP-server would no doubt serve evil causes. ;-) Just kidding. [/tinfoil hat] I\'m guessing groups such as <a href=\"http://www.eff.org\" rel=\"nofollow\" rel="nofollow">EFF</a> and companies as <a href=\"http://www.winternals.com\" rel=\"nofollow\" rel="nofollow">Winternals</a> will soon enough give their pennies\' worth on this subject. First: \”We offer some of our services in connection with other web sites.\”

This may very well mean that they forward info to third parties.

Second: \”In some cases, we may process personal information on behalf of and according to the instructions of a third party, such as our advertising partners.\”

This means they are using \”personal information on behalf of and according to the instructions of a third party\”.

As it is unclear to which \”third paragraphy\” you are referring, I hereby guess it\’s the one starting with \”This Privacy Policy\”; Google are hereby saying they actually don\’t care much what their partners do to collect your data, or, indeed, do with it.

I hope their level of encryption leaves everybody (including the US government, even though I think this, sadly, is not the case) other than the submitting user out of the data, but I\’d like to see more info on this before I collect my thoughts further on the subject. A Google PGP-server would no doubt serve evil causes. ;-) Just kidding. [/tinfoil hat]

I\’m guessing groups such as EFF and companies as Winternals will soon enough give their pennies\’ worth on this subject.

]]> By: Duh http://niklasblog.com/?p=986&cpage=1#comment-8332 Duh Thu, 08 Jun 2006 15:35:56 +0000 http://niklasblog.com/?p=986#comment-8332 Nowhere does it say that Google is forwarding info to third parties. The privacy portion of the third party paragraph is just stating they aren't responsible for sites not owned by Google, (duh??), but linked from them (ie from search results). Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Also, from what I can tell their use of encryption is a public/private key which will make it impossible for them to unencrypt your files. Of course, Vista likes to phone home to MSFT every day too, so what can you do... Nowhere does it say that Google is forwarding info to third parties. The privacy portion of the third party paragraph is just stating they aren’t responsible for sites not owned by Google, (duh??), but linked from them (ie from search results).

Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Also, from what I can tell their use of encryption is a public/private key which will make it impossible for them to unencrypt your files.

Of course, Vista likes to phone home to MSFT every day too, so what can you do…

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