thechromesource – Google Chrome and Chrome OS News and Forum

Maybe Google Knows Too Much, GoogleSharing Can Help

Posted on 20. Jan, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey in News

I’ve previously written about the security implications that come with using Google’s services. However, this is especially problematic when you consider that if the trend of cloud computing and thin application technology is to continue, eventually a good portion of information about you will be stored on Google’s own servers. There are a wide array of issues associated with that – from Google using your tendencies to make more money, or possible ramifications that could occur if Google’s data were to be comprised in a more serious manner than the recent Chinese attacks that targeted activists from that country.

That’s why when I came across GoogleSharing, I was intrigued. To be honest, at first I thought that this was something that came from Google. The look of the site would certainly indicate that, complete with privacy quotes on the left hand side from CEO Eric Schmidt. But the reality is that it’s an independently developed experimental (for now) plugin for Firefox that allows users to search with Google independently. I say search because this plugin currently does not anonymize for use of Google’s Mail, Checkout, Health, Sites, Docs, and Reader applications.

Installation of GoogleSharing was done in a snap. Within Firefox you will see some text in the lower right hand side that indicates whether or not GoogleSharing is enabled. Right clicking on this area will also allow you to open an options menu to change the anonymous proxy settings if you wanted to. The add-in basically uses a proxy that is located at proxy.googlesharing.net that does a number of things to essentially confuse the engine that captures Google queries for search, as well as analytics.

One of the ways, among others that are detailed on the GoogleSharing site is that this works to submit to Google cookies that are “fresh”. This means that they are blank slates that don’t contain any of the usual information that would normally be saved during a browsing session that Google is then able to parse through its intricate data collection architecture. However, there is no way to avoid using some of these service such as Gmail and Google Checkout in a manner that is anonymous, and therefore everything that you do on these services is saved and could potentially be used as a profile that could sell you things such as ads in the future.

Not to say that is what Google using our search information, but who really knows other than those who are insiders? And do you think there would be a plugin like this available for Chrome browser?

Tags: Chrome browser, Chrome OS, Eric Schmidt, Firefox, Gmail, Google, Google Checkout, Google Docs, GoogleSharing, privacy, security