Bug in Google Desktop Forces You to Give Data to the Borg
November 11th, 2007 by Michael Gray in GoogleIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
So last week I twittered I noticed something odd that made it look like Google had opted everybody into personalized search and web history since I was #1 for [michael]. Danny Sullivan twittered back that that wasn’t the case, so I went to my Google account turned it on and then turned it off again, just to be sure. I also went into Google desktop and turned off “web history” from indexing, in case that was what turned on personalized search. I’ve been having problems with Google desktop all week thought it was the software firewall which updated and said I’ll look at it later. Well today it got under my skin, so when I went to tried to figure out what was throwing the error message, I discovered it’s a bug in Google Desktop that forces you to have web history enabled for Google desktop to work. To make it even worse Google has known about this since the 16th of October.
C’mon now it’s starting to look a little fishy to me …
Sphere It
November 11th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Why, oh why, are you using Google desktop? Do you not have Google already so tightly wrapped around your numchuks that you can barely breathe, and yet you let them squeeze just a little bit tighter with another app in which they can delve even more deeply into your psyche?
LOL, seriously, each app of theirs just further entangles you within their web of knowledge about you.
Ok, paranoid DD off to readjust her tinfoil.
November 11th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
What are the other options? I tried Yahoo desktop search, and that was terrible, crashed, and slowed down my comp.
November 11th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Don’t make the confusion between GDesktop’s web history index that stays on your computer and the Web History service that requires Google Toolbar and sends the URLs for all the visited pages to Google. Obviously, GDesktop’s web history doesn’t affect search rankings.
November 11th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
@ionut but according to google desktop privacy policy
http://desktop.google.com/privacypolicy.html
they do send non personal data unless you go and turn that feature off, it’s enabled by default.
November 11th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
“This includes summary information, such as the number of searches you do and the time it takes for you to see your results, and application reports we’ll use to make the program better.”
Totally unrelated to web search.
November 11th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
>Totally unrelated to web search
really … that’s a pretty big conclusion to come to when they don’t mention it at all
November 11th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
yeah… i dont use google desktop… always seemed too… i dont know what to call it… intrusive for my taste.
By the way you wrote the post, I can see you were very agitated about what you discovered… let see if Cutts has anything to say… Im sure he’ll spin it.
November 11th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
It also looks like re-installing google desktop automagically opts you into web history/personalized search, even if you had previously opted out/turned it off, Google trying to do the thinking for me … nice
November 11th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Megalomaniacal, all of ‘em.
But, you take what you think you need and offer up what you don’t mind sharing, I spose.
Then get used to something trying to think for you. Long as it stays out of my shower and toilet and other places where quality thinking is done, I’m cool.
November 12th, 2007 at 2:44 am
Thanks for the update. Now, I am thinking of installing one.
November 12th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Copernic Desktop Search is a brilliant alternative.
November 12th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
thanks mark I’ll check it out