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This is Off the Record: Google Scares Me

Maybe I’ve been reading too much of what Graywolf has been writing, but I noticed something about Google Chat that worries me this morning.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Whenever you’re chatting with someone via Gmail’s built-in chat client, there’s a choice under options to “Go off the record”.

This is off the record

Wow. Does anyone else think that’s kind of … I don’t know, strange? Like I have to explicitly tell Google “this part of my life is not to be indexed or archived for future use, for or against me”. Eeek.

Last week I deleted a few gigabytes worth of data that was still stored on my computer even after I had removed Google desktop.  I only found this large chunk of data after I used a program to hunt down large unnecessary files. It just seems that Google is really intent on indexing our lives and is not very concerned about what happens to that trail. The big “T” in our Brave New World might really turn out to be the big “G”.

September 21, 2007 · Filed under security

pratt said,

September 21, 2007 @ 10:40 am

“Go off the record” is a really scary feature. I hate the idea that they log *everything* I say even if I say not to. And who is to say that they really don’t log it? Maybe it is just there to make you feel better.

Anyways, what program were you using to hunt down those large files? I’d be interested in giving it a go. You can email it to me if you don’t want to post a link. Thanks!

Markus said,

September 21, 2007 @ 10:49 am

It’s a little program called “Spacemonger” - it gives you a visual representation of what’s taking up the most space on your hard drive - and it includes system files and everything else (for example 2Gb that’s in your uninstalled Google desktop folder).

david said,

September 21, 2007 @ 11:34 am

Are you retarded?

These days almost ever IM client logs conversations. Its an incredibly useful feature. I go through logs to find something almost every single day.

Off the record disables logging for that conversation. I’m sure if you wanted to, you could disable logging completely.

Why is that so hard to understand?

Markus said,

September 21, 2007 @ 11:45 am

The issue here is more about Google storing everything they can about you. Yes you could disable logging, but 90% of the people will just go with default settings and are probably not fully aware of just how much information about themselves Google is logging - and what the implications of that are.

If you’ve ever spent time looking at the leaked AOL logs, you’ll get a real sense of just how much personal information you divulge through your searches, without even realizing. And that’s just searches.

I feel a lot more comfortable with Trillian’s built in history - it’s stored on my hard drive and is for my personal use. It’s not somewhere on Google’s servers sharing the same account name as everything else that Google has on me.

Markus said,

September 21, 2007 @ 12:00 pm

Plus the “go off the record” phrase itself makes it sound like you’re being interrogated or interviewed by a reporter, which just makes me feel odd in the context of IM.

Stephan Beal said,

October 5, 2007 @ 5:21 am

It’s not about indexing, it’s about saving the chat. If you’re on the record, the chat is stored in your mailbox like any other message. Try it and see.

Markus said,

October 5, 2007 @ 1:07 pm

Not indexing for displaying in search, but they still have the data on their servers - at any time they can start using that for “ad targeting” and anything else they want.

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