Gmail/Google Calendar/Personal Info

[Jase858]

Hey all,

What's your opinion on entering personal contacts and their personal info onto Gmail contacts? (i.e. name, dob, address, IM SNs, phone numbers, other important dates) Do any of you do this or have an alternative? Google Calendars has a function to sync with the contacts so their birthday's pop up, and i figure that having all that information in there prevents me from scrambling to find everyone's number should I lose my phone or my computer crashes.

[AndrewMendez]

I dont have the calendar set up, but I do have the rest of my friends info. I think with gmail, as long as you have a secure internet connection, and no virus/spyware, your good to go! Although the chat is shady sometimes!

[nick]

It depends on your requirements.

If you work for a company and this might include any company data, I'd check with them (and the answer is likely to be 'no'). Google started the trend for openly harvesting information from their services "for marketing purposes", and it continues to do so.

If it's for personal use and you could care less that Google parses it, it's not necessarily a bad option.

There're many options out there, most, if not all of the good/safe ones aren't free. You know, you get what you paid for.

Is Gmail your primary email account? I use Outlook for my contacts, and Outlook Web Access when I'm not checking it from my laptop or desktops.

[Blackhawk556]

hey you guys heard google is planning on opening up all their google docs that aren't set to private? For some reason I don't trust google with personal info. I fee like they are just going have it out there available for anyone view.

check this out

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-344798.html

[SwissFluCase]

I don't trust third parties with my data. Of course, I have the resources to run my own servers...

Regards,


SwissFluCase

[sfwdiy]

hey you guys heard google is planning on opening up all their google docs that aren't set to private? For some reason I don't trust google with personal info. I fee like they are just going have it out there available for anyone view.

check this out
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-344798.html

The article states that the only Google Docs that would show up in search results are those that are publicly accessible anyway. They also have to be linked to from a publicly accessible website. If that was the case, those links would be spider-ed anyway by search bots.

--B

[POLICESTATE]

I don't trust third parties with my data. Of course, I have the resources to run my own servers...

Regards,


SwissFluCase

I agree, I don't give google any more of my info than I need to, they already have more than enough.

[locosway]

I'm not working on anything that's protected like copyrights or anything. So I'm not worried about having my contacts and stuff with them. Besides, it integrates with my phone and computer perfectly at this time.

If I worked for a company with sensitive data I'd keep everything in house because third parties are always an unknown in your security scheme.

[Macadelic4]

I don't trust third parties with my data. Of course, I have the resources to run my own servers...

Regards,

SwissFluCase

^^This.

OP, once you start putting your data on your own hardware, you never go back. Backups are cheaper, things are easier to integrate, and you ultimately have much more control over how you access data. You also have control over your own security (for good or ill). All in all, if you're at all technically inclined, investigate hosting your own stuff.

And food for thought: software "biodiversity" is a good thing. Having all of your data subject to whatever Google-wide bug or flaw du jour that affects Calendar, Gmail, etc. is not good.

[dude]

^^This.

OP, once you start putting your data on your own hardware, you never go back. Backups are cheaper, things are easier to integrate, and you ultimately have much more control over how you access data. You also have control over your own security (for good or ill). All in all, if you're at all technically inclined, investigate hosting your own stuff.

And food for thought: software "biodiversity" is a good thing. Having all of your data subject to whatever Google-wide bug or flaw du jour that affects Calendar, Gmail, etc. is not good.

I understand the benefits of using your own hardware for ultimate control and security, but how is it easier than using something like Google Apps? It has awesome spam filtering, sets up in minutes, and I'm sure their backups are better than any small business.

[locosway]

I understand the benefits of using your own hardware for ultimate control and security, but how is it easier than using something like Google Apps? It has awesome spam filtering, sets up in minutes, and I'm sure their backups are better than any small business.

There is no simpler solution. The only reason to not use it is control. You can control your data and how it's used. Currently there's no such control on google's products. Also, if you remove your information today, how long will they keep your data? Forever?

There are pros and cons here, depending on what your business is and your needs, one may out weigh the other. For personal use, I have no problem with their services.

[froman118]

I trust Google with all of my personal email, contacts, documents and calendaring. I don't consider any of that sensitive information so even if Google was compromised (which they have a very large incentive not to be) there's zero harm that could come of it. Keep your machine spyware and malware free, run a firewall and make sure you have a secure connection when shopping and banking online and you're good. Not sure why some people are so paranoid.

[POLICESTATE]

I've been noticing that I get little ad banners in my gmail now:

They are parsing either my subject line or message body to be able to do this type of profiling.

It's not google analytics either, I forbid those scripts from running in my web browser.

[dude]

POLICESTATE, that has been covered in the tech websites before. Google is parsing your email for sure, but I believe those parsing scripts do not report anything to Google.

Any email administrator can read your email. There is no security unless you are the sole administrator of your own email server.

[locosway]

POLICESTATE, that has been covered in the tech websites before. Google is parsing your email for sure, but I believe those parsing scripts do not report anything to Google.

Any email administrator can read your email. There is no security unless you are the sole administrator of your own email server.

PGP/GPG

I'm not sure why people don't do this more often. It was mandatory in a few companies I've worked for.

If we'd just use the signing we'd reduce our spam by a whole lot.