You Know What?!?!?

Google has just released a new service, Google Dashboard – which pulls together all the information Google knows about you (except your search history) and shows it to you in one simple page.

OK, so it doesn’t sound that exciting – after all, almost all the information is available already – but in the past you would have to go to lots of different places to find it. I use Google a lot for personal email, and of course there is Google Talk, and then – well, this was where I was surprised at just how many services I had signed up to over the years. I found I even ‘owned’ a document… which it turns out, I had posted, but had forgotten about.

So… why is this of interest. Well, two things really:

1) Your web footprint is probably a lot bigger than you thought and while this is just Google services, it certainly makes you think about all the other things you might have signed up to use and then forgotten about – but they still have your details. (A phisher’s paradise!)

2) Perhaps other companies should start to do the same – so you can readily find out about what information they hold. We could probably do with some standards so that you could then amalgamate the information out there and get a more complete picture – but that’s probably getting a little way ahead of today’s practicality.

The best news with the Google Dashboard is that once you have seen what you have you can then edit / remove it. In an online world a little transparency as to what information companies hold is a big step forwards.

Guy Bunker

November 6, 2009 | Filed Under Phishing, security 

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One Response to “You Know What?!?!?”

  1. You Know What – Part 2 : View From The Bunker on December 8th, 2009

    [...] wrote previously on Google opening up it’s information on what it knows about you – well, now Yahoo has as well. [...]

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