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http://gmail-is-too-creepy.com/
Google offers 1 gig of storage, which is many times the storage
offered by Yahoo or Hotmail, or other Internet service providers that
we know about. The powerful searching encourages account holders to
never delete anything. It takes three clicks to put a message into the
trash, and more effort to delete this message. It's much easier to
"archive" the message, or just leave it in the inbox and let the
powerful searching keep track of it. Google admits that even deleted
messages will remain on their system, and may also be accessible
internally at Google, for an indefinite period of time.
Google covets your email address
Google has added many new services and features in recent years. On
April 1 they announced their Gmail service. It's no April Fools joke,
but someone at Google may still be laughing. A form on their site lets
you enter your email address so that Google can send you updated
information about Gmail within the next few weeks.
Many Google fans, as well as those who are attracted to the generous
storage offered by Google's free Gmail, are rushing to enter their
email address in this box. Although it is not stated anywhere on
Google's site, the presumption among many is that those who do this
immediately will have a better chance of getting a unique username
that suits them.
This is an urgent appeal to anyone entering their email address on any
page at google.com, to first delete their Google cookie. The urgency
has to do with the fact that hundreds of thousands have already done
this, and millions more can be expected to do this over the next month
or two. Other pages at Google have the same problem (News Alerts is an
example), but the numbers involved are much smaller.
Google uses a single cookie for everything, and it expires in 2038.
Your browser offers this cookie, which contains a unique ID number,
every time you enter any page on Google's site. If you don't have a
cookie, Google will give you one with a new unique ID number.
All of your search terms are saved by Google, along with a time stamp,
your IP address, and your unique cookie ID. So far this information is
not considered "personally identifiable" by Google because your IP
addresses might be dynamic. (Broadband addresses are often fixed for
weeks or months, but dialup addresses are very dynamic.) The unique ID
in the cookie is the one thing that identifies all of your various IP
addresses as coming from the same browser.
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