Increasingly, Google is providing an extremely powerful technical capability to communicate, store and process my private data.

However I have a few questions:

1) What protection do I have against government access to my private data, if I use products like Gmail and Google Calendar?

2) Can I trust Google to protect my privacy?

3) How can I be sure that my private data on Google is not being modified or accessed by others?

4) Will Google expunge my private data from their systems, if and when I choose to stop using Google?

5) Are there technical or legal safeguards that can be used to reduce risks of unauthorized access to my private date on Google systems (e.g. encryption or US privacy laws)?

6) What are the reasonable and affordable alternatives to Google for a private citizen to utilize modern computer-communications systems for the storage, processing and communication of private data?

7) Can I live on-line without Google?

At the time of writing, I am of the opinion that the risks to my privacy of using Google far out-weigh the advantages.

Advice would be appreciated.


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Most of your questions seem to be directed specifically to Google and can probably best be answered by Google.

Here are a couple of other Google-related privacy issues you may be interested in:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=9594

http://government.zdnet.com/?p=3934

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10011842-38.html?hhTest=1

Privacy problems with Google document sharing:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/im-in-your-google-docs-reading-your-spreadsheets/index.html

use scroogle (scroogle.org) to replace the google search bar in your browser. It still uses the google engine, but anonymously.

also look into TOR or some other proxy setup to anonymize your search info.

also, common sense, don't create any single search with too much info in it. ex. "My_name my_address my_social"