I'm beginning to think Google is turning into Microsoft, only with a better image. Because everyone loves Google, right? It's an innocuous search engine that everyone uses. In fact, its web site has a button on it that says "I'm Feeling Lucky!" Ha ha! Good ol' Google. How could it be bad?
Their GMail, although a little Big Brother-ish, gets generally favorable reviews. But I would beware the Google Web Accelerator. It supposedly speeds up web browsing by monitoring what web sites you visit and caching entire web sites on Google's servers. That's right, it saves entire pages that you've clicked on--the whole thing sounds creepy. More importantly, it sounds like a major invasion of privacy. This section from the News.com article about GWA is the most disturbing.
Is my privacy in jeopardy by using Web Accelerator?
It could be, depending on your comfort level. According to Google's privacy policy, the Web Accelerator retrieves and caches Web pages you've visited, and those page requests can include personal information about you. It also temporarily caches third-party cookies that can contain personal data. For example, if you've entered information such as e-mail or a physical address into a form on an unencrypted Web page, Google might pick up that data through the Web Accelerator. It also collects "clickstream" data such as URLs you've requested, the date and time of the request, as well as your Internet Protocol address and computer and connection information.
Hey, no thanks!
Additionally, this "privacy invasion accelerator (beta)" is intended only for broadband users. I have a cable modem, and it's plenty fast enough for me, but I guess there are always speed-hungry, ADHD-afflicted users who crave 1 second page loads instead of 5 second page loads. But this "accelerator" doesn't make downloading pictures, mp3s, and streaming video any faster.
Again, no. Really, no thanks.
Remember: Google is out to MAKE MONEY, just like every other company on the planet. Google isn't looking out for you, to make your web experience happier; they want more web hits, which means more ad revenue for them. So don't give away your personal info for free just because they're allegedly giving you faster web browsing for "free" (there's already an astonishing amount of searchable info about you out there). Because nothing is free, and in this case it looks like the average web surfer will be the one paying.