News - Virgin Media gets into bed with Google

[HEXUS]

Collaboration with Google Apps part of strategy to offer extra bells and whistles to broadband customers.

Read more.

[mehmeh]

Only forsee one problem with online storage... STM?

[Saracen]

It's academic as far as I'm concerned, because personally, I neither see the need for, nor trust, online apps. As a result, I will not under any circumstances use such online apps from any company, and from Google far less than most.

My data stays on my machines, and the only way I'd even use online backup is for minimally important material, and even that, only if it's thoroughly encrypted before it goes off my machines. For the same reason, I don't use the likes of Google desktop, or even webmail services from the likes of Google, and any sensitive mail is an encrypted exchange anyway.

My first question with this type of service is "what's in it for them?"

In MS's case, it may well be as simple as wanting to migrate Office users from a purchase model to a subscription model. Well, again personally, thanks but no thanks. I'm currently still using Office 2000 for WP, spreadsheets, etc. For that matter, I've still got old DOS Wordstar packages somewhere and even they would probably meet my WP needs ..... if I could get the requisite printer drivers. Much the same applies to my spreadsheet needs too.

Other people may well need features in later versions so their mileage may vary, but I wrote off the cost of Office 2000 several years ago, so I'm certainly not shifting to an MS subscription model in order to pay for extra features I don't need.

As for Google, well, either they're after market share prior to going to a sub model, or much more likely, they're after the rather less direct benefits derived from data mining and the opportunities that presents for marketing and advertising. Well, I don't want to be marketed at by ANYBODY unless I've explicitly asked for it, and certainly not by Google.

The result is that I do everything in my power to avoid letting such companies build any more of a profile of me than I can absolutely avoid, and if I could prevent it outright, I would. I can't, but I'm sure as hell not handing them a goldmine of personal information by letting them see any and all data that goes through my office apps. Hell will freeze over first.


As I said, other people's mileage may vary. Others may not care about protecting their privacy, or may see online apps as a great idea, especially if free. And they're welcome to them. But as far as I'm concerned, they're the spawn of the devil and there's no way I'm using them. I will consider upgrading MS Office, if and when I ever need to, or when the benefits outweigh the costs. If MS completely abandon the purchased model (and I don't see it any time soon), then it'll be OpenOffice for me, or more likely, sticking with my existing solution.

But online apps? Not for me, and certainly not from Google.

[Crevan]

Google is not the root of all online evil, they're just bigger than everyone else (possibly, combined) and better at what they do. I would expect most internet applications and services to conduct data mining and profiling activities, which probably means that the internet is not the best place to look for privace

As I see it, this service could be big with netbook and small laptop users, as the storage capacity on those devices is rather limited (and it's not always convenient to carry around an external drive or a pendrive).

Also, BT had a similar online backup service for quite a while now, nothing new here.

[Saracen]

I didn't say Google were the root of all online evil, but that online apps were the spawn of the devil as far as I'm concerned. That that applies to Google more than most is because they're so big, therefore any profiling they do has the potential to be that much more pervasive, and damaging.

And it's precisely because the internet is not he place to look for privacy that the internet is the very last place anyone that wishes to protect their privacy should seek to store sensitive documents, at the very least without an extremely careful perusal of the Terms of Service whoever is providing that service seeks to use. Google, after all, have a track record with their T&Cs, the "mistake" with Chrome's being a case in point.

And if all that applies to individuals protecting personal data, it applies about a hundred fold to companies whose staff may well be using online apps on data that either has IP implications, or is commercially sensitive. If you use such online apps, where is data stored? Under what conditions is it transferred server to server, and/or archived? How long is it archived for? Where, under what security regime and restrictions and with what protection, and in which country? How many Google staff can access that data, and with what access restrictions? Google's T&Cs give pretty broad-ranging options to them for sharing with various partners, and in some situations, bounce the privacy and security implications to the T&Cs of those partners, despite the user not necessarily being aware of exactly when those T&Cs are in effect, or when partners are getting data.

If I have a direct agreement with an online backup outfit to store online backups, and their contract limits their use of that data to storing it for my benefit, that's one thing. But if that online backup organisation reserve the right to rummage through my data for their own benefit, that's entirely another. It's also why NOTHING would go to such an online backup company from me unless it was encrypted first.

And it's not just my personal data. I do work for clients that involves their sensitive data. I'm contractually responsible for ensuring due care is taken of their data while it's in my possession. Just imagine how damaging it would be is confidential procedures or training guides, let alone quotes and proposals, got into a competitor's hands because I'd been using online apps, and those data files were "archived" somewhere where a competitor found them. I don't want anything to do with my family's medical history (such as a letter to family about any issues) getting into Google's hands (or servers), and more than I want a letter to my bank or mortgage holder doing so. And I certainly don't want client files doing so.

As I said, other people's mileage may vary. But I won't use such apps for these reasons, and nor will any employee of mine. And they are an absolute minefield of potential trouble for IT managers.

[Crevan]

I think we are approaching this from different points of view here. You're quite right about the privacy issues for company or sensitive personal information (though I'm sure there will be a lot of people using it who don't care or are just careless). The Virgin Media service, however, is probably targeted at casual home users. In fact, I'm almost certain that most of what will be backed up would have ended up on Facebook, blogs or Twitter anyway.

Another possible use for this is file sharing with friends and family (with the promised remote access feature). Though you'd have to be sure you can trust these people =)

[[GSV]Trig]

Backup to floppy > Backup to anything with Google near it.

[Nelviticus]

With the pitiful upload speeds you get with Virgin it will take you all week to upload 5 gigs of data. When you can buy an 8GB USB stick for a tenner or a blank DVD for a few pence who's going to go through the pain of uploading 5GB?

[Saracen]

I think we are approaching this from different points of view here. You're quite right about the privacy issues for company or sensitive personal information (though I'm sure there will be a lot of people using it who don't care or are just careless). The Virgin Media service, however, is probably targeted at casual home users. In fact, I'm almost certain that most of what will be backed up would have ended up on Facebook, blogs or Twitter anyway.

Another possible use for this is file sharing with friends and family (with the promised remote access feature). Though you'd have to be sure you can trust these people =)

Oh I'm sure that you're right about the overt targetting at being home users, but how many home users will use this service for business use if they get used to using it for their own purposes .... unless IT managers take sufficient care to lock laptops down stringently, and to put punitive terms in employee handbooks, etc?

But it's more than that. The Google Apps provision is not just about online backup, though that's dodgy enough. It's about calendar sharing, contact sharing and even document sharing. A lot can be extrapolated from contacts, and even more from calendars. NO way would I give Google access to either. And as for the contents of documents, if you're using an online word processor to work on sensitive documents, be they personal or business.

But my comments weren't just about Google Apps and/or even Virgin's implementation, but more generically about the whole cloud computing phenomenon. It is, without doubt, where a lot of big players, not least MS, see things going if they get their way, and probably because of their desire to change us all from an "upgrade if they can convince us" model, to a subscription model where we pay monthly for a service mix. Well, that's bad enough for actual real services, like your phone, broadband and TV package but they are NOT, personally, getting me to go that route either within personal computing or business computing.

There's a drive afoot, and has been for some time, to shift us to this cloud computing concept. But for me, it breaks the whole "personal computer" paradigm. The point, in my view, is that personal computers are personal. I don't want, and won't accept, a computer that is increasingly dumb, with the application power provided by service providers. I simply won't. Ever. Apart from anything else, the whole concept puts increasing power of control over our lives into the hands of the ISP. If you are reliant on an ISP for such services, then when you get a period without service provision, you'll not only lose your internet connection, but any services provided via that model, such as document production, and perhaps even access to your own archived documents.

I;ve had several occasions where my NTL connection has disappeared for hours at a time, and on a couple of occasions, for several days at a time. Risking being unable to access critical documents for hours, let alone days, because I've lost my BB connection is a risk I'm not up for. If I keep both document control, and application installations local, then they're under my direct control, and I can manage risk and deal with any problems myself, without having to just sit, wait and chew my nails until NTL (or any other ISP) get around to giving me my connection back.

This is why I don't like the whole cloud computing concept ..... it breaks the whole point of "personal" computing. NTL is one small part of the issue, and even Google apps is just a part, though a significant sized part. It's the whole concept, and the implications both for personal and business computing, that I reject. Though, as I said, other people#s mileage may vary and some people may like the concept. Some, no doubt, will like it because they haven't thought through the implications, and some may understand it fully and still like it. Fair enough. But me? Not in a billion years. Also as I said earlier, hell will freeze over before I'll use them. But I'm sure a lot of people will.

[watercooled]

IMO Google should stick to search and GMail - that's all I use anyway. They are releasing too much crap lately, trying to get their foot in everywhere, being greedy. I'd rather use open-source software over free online apps any day. Even netbooks don't need online apps, it's just so many programs lately are so bloated they don't run efficiently. It's also important to remember Google has teamed up with doubleclick (or is it fastclick). And, what exactly do they mean by 'remote access'???

[TAKTAK]

One thing that you forgot to mention is that it will be supplied with the annoying Google toolbar...

I don't understand why people use it

[CrazyMonkey]

One thing that you forgot to mention is that it will be supplied with the annoying Google toolbar...

I don't understand why people use it

Ditto

I hate toolbars altogether.

i have one bar in firefox and it's tiny, back-forward-refresh-file (drop down for all others like edit, view etc) then url bar.

Room for more content

[blueball]

Mmm, so I need to download my 5Gb because my disk copy is corrupt but of course that will break my "fair use" limits so my bandwidth will get throttled!!

Muppets!