Google Apps sics crawlers on public docs and sheets Google will soon allow search engines to crawl and index documents, spreadsheets, and presentations published to the web via its online office suite, Google Apps. On Friday, in a letter to Google Apps users, the web giant informed users the change would arrive "in a few weeks." This was confirmed by a Google spokeswoman in an …
"Inb4"
Kotonoha, how old are you? Do you REALLY think that "inb4" makes you look smart? Here's a clue, no charge ... it doesn't. It makes you look like a clueless idiot.
"someone misunderstanding this as a bad thing or some sort of invasion of privacy."
That is an entirely different issue. People who trust google, msn, yahoo, or any other multi-national with their private data deserve what they get.
all your information are belong to Google
they won't set you up the bomb
trust them
we welcome our new information-controlling overlords ...
... they'll get my data when they pry it out of my cold, dead hands, and even then I'll make damn sure it's more trouble than it's worth profit to them ...
In with what? Your comment means nothing, except as a placeholder stating no real opinion --- for instance you don't actually state whether you feel this is a 'bad thing' or an 'invasion of privacy', merely that you're 'inb4' someone else states that.
And @AC06:38 --- "Freetards of the world unite ! You have nothing to lose but you livelihoods!" --- freedom does not imply loss , indeed people can and do setup entire business infrastructures on FOSS and make their and other's livelihoods.
Seriously? Are you like 12? Honestly I find this to be absolute bullshit from Google. Way I'm reading this is they are saying screw copyrights even more then they are with the book deal. Sounds like a business (and I'm not saying that businesses shouldnt do this if you are working for them) saying what you do on our time is our property.
Only way I can see this being legit is if they go with an opt-in option instead of just saying screw you all we own whatever you do with our apps. Surprised that not more people are saying that if M$ did this then there should be a class action to prevent it.
In other news, stuff published on a public website are visible to the world. Well, D´oh. Who would have guessed? It´s not like it what the www have been create for in the first place, is it? I am actually surprised that it didn´t happen *wayyyy* before. After all all major search engines already crawl PDFs and MSOffice documents linked to from a public website...
¨So what happenes when a comapny account ends up on Google!?!?!¨
You mean, what happens when a company willingly publishes its accounting on the www for everyone to see? Well, then it´s available to the world, I guess. Not that doing biz-critical accounting on Google Apps would be a good idea in the first place, but why would you then _publish_ it on a public website?
If you trust sensitive documents to a *free* cloud-based service where you have no control over, assurance of or minimum service relating to availibiity, security, copyright or accessibility you really, really need to sit down and have a good think about it.
If you run a business on those terms having your accounts leak may well be the least of your worries.
@James O'Brien - Which part of "This only applies to files explicitly published using the suite's "publish as web page" or "publish/embed" options and linked to from a public webpage" did you not understand? They are going to index documents that people explicitly chose to make public and visible to the world. That's kind of, you know, what Google do. Nice to see them getting on with their core business for a change, actually.
So Google are going to index documents that are already publicly available on the net?
Privacy invasion? Nah, unethical, Nah.
So wheres the problem? In this case, it's a fuss about nothing. If you're worried about people seeing it, it shouldn't be published for the world to see.
Because, apparently, pictures of cats with humourous quotes are teh funny.
News just in, El Reg contributes to general paranioa of the internet by reporting that Google is doing what Google have always done, making the best search engine they can by trawling public web pages.
Commentards, as usual, read the first few lines then misinterpret the article and pass summary judgement on the evil overlords of the internet.
Garfield lolcat: 'Gravity, why fight it?' Hey, where's the lolcat icon?
"If you trust sensitive documents to a *free* cloud-based service..." etc.
All very true, but unfortunately decisions to commit an organization to the use of these services can be made by those whose who place above "value for money" above all else, and rather charmingly conclude that if value = worth/cost and cost == 0 then value == \inf. On top of this, when it comes to technical matters they have the viscosity of porcine excrement.
I know of one large institution where exactly such a move is being contemplated.
AC for obvious reasons.
It does seem pretty clear to me.
And I would agree that Google should pay attention to the secondary problem of indicating which documents are "published".
It's a long while since I had reason to use a spreadsheet program. Well, I have OpenOffice. And if I wanted an off-site back-up with Google, I'd email an attachment to my Gmail account.
But, since OpenOffice runs on all but the cheapest, most anaemic, netbooks, why on earth take a chance with Google Apps?
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