Google backs down over browser amid privacy concerns
Mex Cooper
September 4, 2008Google has made an embarrassing backdown after it was revealed the company would have rights to any information entered into websites by people using its new internet browser.
A day after the Google Chrome browser was released, a controversial clause in its “End User License Agreement” (EULA) has been removed following concerns it breached people’s privacy and copyright.
Users who downloaded the free browser yesterday were asked to agree to a clause that gave Google a “perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly, perform, publicly display and distribute” any information they typed into a website.
Part of the same clause allowed Google to share the information with “other companies, organisations or individuals with whom Google has relationships”.
Who needs spyware when you’ve got Google?
-weez
2 Comments so far
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Yikes! Thanks for the heads-up.
Been playing with chrome the last two days, quite impressed with it actually.
In Googles defence the whole thing is open source, so any spyware within it will be quickly found. As has been shown with the EULA problem, which they have since fixed.
The incognito mode is real cool, will be looking for reviews on this function, to see if is as good as Google touts.
Comment by OzAtheist 09.05.08 @ 8:47 amHope you’re right, Oz. Do keep in mind that Goog would love to datamine anything run through their browser and have a business model which makes that a real possibility. I hope the open source community support in Chrome is ethical and will point out any back doors or other Google marketing access in the thing.
Comment by weez 09.05.08 @ 9:32 amLeave a comment
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