Google Desktop Search - Think about it!

From Tom Smith at InformationWeek comes this blog posting excerpt: So for me, it's encouraging to see that Google continues to enhance its Desktop software program. I already use it on my personal system and hope to extend that use -- policies permitting -- to my corporate activities. Yes, I'm quite concerned about the prospect of personal information getting stored on Google computers, but there are obvious steps I can take to avoid that, such as taking off my PC any data -- such as financial account information -- that I wouldn't want to be accessible to the outside world. And, for all the concerns that get raised about Google and whether it's becoming the world's biggest snoop, its download page gives clear, explicit instructions for how to prevent Google Desktop from indexing and searching certain the data that you don't want it to. For many users, however, it's likely that won't be good enough and their privacy concerns -- specifically relating to the Search Across Computers function -- will outweigh the potential benefits. (For another view on the Google Desktop Search software, here's a compelling opinion from Preston Gralla of our Networking Pipeline site and yet another, more skeptical opinion worth reading.) Read the full post here. I recommend following the links to read the two other opinions Tom references. Then think about how you turn on Google Desktop Search if you do. This is another step towards that Google future or futuristic vision.