"Lakehead University in Canada was one of the first large-scale adopters of Google applications, but a storm has broken out after staff were told not to use it for personal or sensitive information. The problem arises because the information is stored on Google's servers in the US where authorities have the right to read everything Google stores under the Patriot Act."

Ah, the ugly side of cloud computing is emerging. And Google wants to get privacy standards unified? Fat chance, but with all of Google's resources, they should be able to built distributed datacenters in each country... they maybe open it up like Amazon has so ew can all benefit?

"Greg felt a spasm in his guts. "You're looking at my searches and e-mail?"... "Sir, calm down, please. No, I'm not looking at your searches," the man said in a mocking whine. "That would be unconstitutional. We see only the ads that show up when you read your mail and do your searching. I have a brochure explaining it. I'll give it to you when we're through here.""

Creepy little story about the might of Google. Kind of reminded me of the scene in the Matrix when Neo is sitting at his green-screen, then all of a sudden getting a knock on the door...

"Today I was in a meeting where someone mentioned that most of the people he knows have profiles on both MySpace and Facebook because their real friends are on MySpace while their work friends are on Facebook... It sucks for teens trying to balance mom and friends. It sucks for college students trying to have a social life and not piss off their profs. It sucks for 20-somethings trying to date and balance their boss's presence. "

Hmm... not something I'm dealing with right now, but an interesting point. I guess the alternate argument is that your employers expect this anyway, so does seeing it matter?

"Under new provisions of the Protect America Act 2007 recently signed into legislation, as an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, the US National Security Agency (NSA) can monitor all traffic originating, passing through or terminating in the US without requiring a court order. Given that more than 35% of the world's voice and non-voice telecom traffic is routed through US hubs, the act essentially gives the NSA legal access to monitor over one third of the world's telecom traffic."

Creepy, and all in the name of terrorism. Bring on encrypted, anonymously proxied connections!

"Somehow, someway, my Yahoo! Mail account had been hacked. Someone changed the name of the account as well as my mailing address which is why I could not reset my password. Even worse, my dear old hacker went through some old emails I had and found information on an account I had on Ebay. The hacker then proceeded to login to my Ebay account and starting bidding and buying like it was Christmas time... Oh by the way, never heard or received back any type of communication from Yahoo!."

And this is why I'm weary of 'in-the-cloud' services - you have no control over your data anymore.

"What’s is interesting in this post is that Google has sidestepped the actual privacy issue that has many people concerned about the amount of knowledge the company has about Internet users."

Impressive list of things Google can potentially dig up about you. Maybe we'll finally see some real public reaction soon...the pot's about to boil over.

"Personal details such as income, marital status and college grades have long been public information in this tightly structured country. But as credit information sites made the information available online, many Swedes became concerned that the national tradition of transparency was being stretched too far...Online credit checks became a popular pastime in Sweden after a website called Ratsit.se in November started publishing financial details, free of charge, from the national tax authority."

Wow, those Swedes are sure trusting.

"Ok, let’s get serious here. I had to read the article twice because I could not believe what I was reading. Who in their right mind would now sign up or want to stay with AT&T when they know they are going to be spied on? Even if you are not downloading copyrighted material, would anyone really want AT&T or should we now call them Big Brother, spying on what you surf, view, type and download?"

Why? Because the majority of their customers would have no idea.

"The headlines just don’t stop for Google. But with the now complete acquisition of Feedburner, are there any parts of our online lives that don’t reside somewhere within the Googleplex? Through acquisitions and a few thousands of the world’s best engineers, the company knows more about you than you might be aware of. "

Ah, Fear Of Google again. I have to say it worries me sometimes, but then, what option do we have when Google's apps are so good, if not ugly?