Your Google docs: Soon in search results?
Users of Google Docs and Spreadsheets accustomed to publicly publishing their documents might want to rethink exactly how publicly available they want to them to be.
Google on Thursday wrote in a blog post that "in about two weeks, we will be launching a change for published docs. The change will allow published docs that are linked to from a public Web site to be crawled and indexed, which means they can appear in search results you see on Google.com and other search engines...This is a very exciting change, as your published docs linked to from public Web sites will reach a much wider audience of people."
"Marie" of Google was quick to note that the crawling for search results "only applies to docs which you explicitly publish using the 'Publish as Web page' or 'Publish/embed' option, and which are linked to from a publicly crawled Web page" (documents for which users choose only to "allow anyone with the link to view" will not get crawled, she wrote, adding that users can unpublish documents they wish to remain uncrawled).
Some users of the search giant's suite of online productivity applications expressed concerns about the plan, suggesting better labeling of potentially crawlable documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. For example, how would you know definitively if a publicly crawled Web page has linked to your published document? Is the only way to ensure that your published document does not ultimately show up in search results to actually unpublish it?
As noted by The Register, "Google Apps master view does not tell you which docs are publicly published and which aren't." While it may well be obvious to most users how publicly available their Google documents are--and many of those published documents may well be intended to be as publicly available as possible--this seems to be another area where Google needs to find the right balance between transparency and data accessibility.
Zoë Slocum is copy chief of CNET News and manager of the CNET Blog Network. She joined CNET in 2003, after two years at a travel start-up. She started in San Francisco, was based in the Boston bureau for four years, and is now back in the Bay Area. E-mail Zoë. 
In making Docs available, Google will be violating the privacy of many by making heretofore private documents public. They have not made their dashboard clear so there is no question what is public and private and they have given inadequate notice of the change. Rather than just a blog entry, Google should be emailing individual Docs users repeatedly for 6 months in advance advising them of the massive upcoming change to the status of their documents.
@Rezca, it would seem YOU are the one who is trolling by suggesting that people need a reason why Google sucks. While I have supplied 2 excellent reasons (there are many more), many people (like galadan111) who understand intuitively that Google sucks, and believe as I do, that Google is run by bad people with bad motives.
...yes, of course, why not say something sucks without an actual reason. I'm sure that's not pretty much trolling in its most common form at all, whereas suggesting you need a reason for hating something, of course, is trolling in its purest form.
But whatever. It won't matter after, as many seem to believe, the world has been taken over by a evil company owning a search engine and a couple of tech/web-related projects.
And another thing, why is everyone up in arms over the Google books deal?! NOTHING IS STOPPING ANY OTHER COMPANY FROM DOING THE EXACT SAME AS GOOGLE IN THE FUTURE! You can't resell the scans that Google paid to have done without giving Google some money first. Totally understandable (they did the work). If you want to sell the digital copy of the book w/o giving Google money, then you have to scan it yourself! They only made the deal to protect the digital copies that they produced!
Google has done amazing things for the internet, giving away free products left and right and making information that would otherwise be hard to access just a click away. Yeah, they advertise, but thats their business model. Don't charge, sell ads instead.
"Google sucks because they are a powerful, rich, self-serving company that is seeking to recast the law to meet their own Utopian ideals."
I don't know how utopian they are, but if those are the critera for sucking then all the companies on the fortune 500 list suck as well.
"Nothing has proven that more than the fact that the Department of Justice has called them to task for the Google Books deal. "
The DOJ's primary concern with the settle are the anti-trust implications as it would give Google the sole rights make out of print books avaliable online. Considering the way Google Books worked when the publisher filed suit Google probably could have made a pretty strong fair use claim.
"Google cares nothing for the intellectual rights of others"
Those rights are not aboslute despite what some rights holders would like to think. There are fair uses, that do not require compensation or permission.
"not do they care, as in this case, for individual privacy rights. They have betrayed trust"
Examples? Also no one is forced to use Google and they certainly seem to have a better record when it comes to handing over data. They were the only company that fought the U.S governments request for millions of search queries and they've kept servers with users sensitive data out of repressive regimes like China so authories can't easily use the information.
"In making Docs available, Google will be violating the privacy of many by making heretofore private documents public."
Only if they are published and linked to on a public website. Publishing a Google Doc requires explicit action by the user. Indeed, when you click publish you are given an explaination of what it means and asked if you want to continue. One would hope people who use Google Doc would not publish a document they wanted kept private.
By selecting an already published document, you can unpublish it.
"They have not made their dashboard clear so there is no question what is public and private and they have given "inadequate notice of the change."
All documents default to unpublished and unshared, private. Only publishing makes a document public. Sharing lets let only people you specify have access and you can further define what sort of access they have. So while the published status is not clear it is not an egregious violation.
"Rather than just a blog entry, Google should be emailing individual Docs users repeatedly for 6 months in advance advising them of the massive upcoming change to the status of their documents."
6 months and repeated email is excessive. There will be no status change to their documents.
"@Rezca, it would seem YOU are the one who is trolling by suggesting that people need a reason why Google sucks."
No he's right, just saying something sucks with no explaination is trollish and lazy.
It's always nice to hear from the Google Legal Department. Don't forget to bill your client for this contribution.
...and you're not. Otherwise, I doubt you'd give a damn. ;)
I think you misunderstand. Google is indexing published web pages. Is this particularly wrong?
Here's how one would have to get their spreadsheet (or whatever) published:
1.) Hit Share.
2.) Click "Publish as a web page".
3.) Click "Start Publishing".
Does ANY part of this process seem private to you?
1. " Google sucks because they are a powerful, rich, self-serving company....."
You have forgotten about Microsoft and the BSA. Google is not evil, cruel and selfserving.
Dowell100, Once again you have been found wrong. You have not supplied valid reasons.
The goal of Google Books was to make info widely available. It seems to me that your goal is to make Google look bad.
2. "they tried with Gmail by indexing and advertising against your email..."
And you think Micro$oft doesn't index your email? Advertising: Text is better than graphic. I hate the ads in Hotmail. The ads in Gmail have proved helpful in some situations.
3."Translation: Don't trust Google w/ anything important..."
You are wrong there. Is there any proven reason? No.
Microsoft is the one in hot water. Their Office Word infringes on i4i Technologies' patents.
And if you happen to be a MicroDroid, tough. You'll be out of a job real quick.
Ambulance chasers, you too will be out of a job.
That's like asking "is the only way to ensure people don't see you in your yard to actually go back in the house?"
You have to go out of your way to make something public, yet we'll still be hearing people whine about the fact that now the stuff you make public might be seen by the public! The horror!
This is something that many people have wanted - that when they have a public, published document it is searchable. This actually assists in intellectual property and copyright claims - as in, when a document is accessible to the public, it automatically has a level of protection under these forms of legislations in most jurisdictions. It will cut down on the theft of original material that wasn't considered 'published'.
If you don't want your documents public, then don't go through the arduous process of making the document public nor the second step of having it linked from a public site. Seriously - what is it about public you don't understand? Being upset about this, is like advertising a gig on a street poster and then getting pissy when someone puts a light above it and lists the gig on a website so others can actually notice it. It was ALREADY public, it is now searchable and visible but still as public as it was 2 minutes ago...
What's more dangerous than some company violating your privacy? a company that knows how to violate your privacy within the current legal framework and get away with it. Imagine how dangerous Google would be if you trusted them with Cloud computing and provided them with your sales data! Google will know what products or services you offer and what the demographics are of your customers who buy these products, then use this information as leverage to sell more ads. Don't laugh, it's most likely already in the pipeline.
I totally agree with the earlier comment. It's hard to trust Google with anything that is important to you, your business, or your customers.
Next they will want to index record and display my public phone calls made on Android, how about any document i create using CHROME OS will that become publicly available too?
The more I hear of google the more I distrust them. Bing has come along just in time to provide some competition to these guys little did I know that it has only made Google ramp up their efforts of monetising everybodies privacy even faster and more blatantly. Google is out of control!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&defl=en&q=define:publish&ei=hyO2SsrvLcqE8QbnwYWzAw&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title
Hey I want my public published documents to be hidden!!
/end sarcasm
If you don't want your documents indexed:
1. Don't check the "publish this document" box. That is the same as saying, "This is for everyone to read."
2. Don't put it on a public website. That is also the same as saying, "This is for everyone to read."
If you don't want your 2009 taxes public, don't publish them on the web.
If you must publish documents on the public web that you don't want anyone to see, put a robots.txt file in the directory.
I sure hope Google (and Zoho, and Microsoft) makes it a little difficult to accidentally publish to the web. For example say I want to share a document with a friend. I hope the steps I have to go through to share the document to that friend is much easier and obvious than the steps required to publish the document to the web. If it's easier to publish the document for all to see then I can see some people taking the quickest path without understanding the consequences.
I think this demonstrates reasonable steps have already been taken, however, in the list view of the documents I think it would useful to display which are public vs private and in addition, which are crawlable, vs just public.
It takes a number of mouse clicks and selections to actually make a document public. Why would anyone do this unless they actually wanted it public? Further more, it takes additional steps to link to this document from a public website. If they really wanted this document to be private, why go to such great lengths to make it publicly accessible?
The only mistake Google made was not indexing these from the very start. Then there wouldn't be a "controversy".
So what is the problem.
If you don't want it public, then share it.
Publishing anything is what it is.
It jealousy at worst an can turn the brightest people into stupid idiots.
They apply the same thing to stuff which is good for the world and it people such as the google book project.
People are jelous of success.
I can understand hate toward Microsoft as they have hurt consumers with their tactic, but Google has been great. They give much of their great services away, and they have singlehandly made the Web a much better platform by not only providing the best search, but paying web site owners revenue through Adsense, hence encouraging better web sites.
Thanks Google.
Good job Google on the "right balance between transparency and data accessibility."
chris( http://www.designerpeople.com)
1. The Internet is not private. (for the most part)
2. In spite of popular opinion... Privacy is NOT a right, it's a privlege.
3. Google's primary purpose is to provide search capabilities making
it easier to find data. They provide other services, but if you are a simple
clicker and don't read what it is that "click" means or don't understand
what it is you are agreeing to then don't complain when the responsibility
falls squarely on YOU.
- by Homncruse September 21, 2009 1:13 PM PDT
- Yikes... I don't get the controversy. Notice that the word is *published*! Not *shared*. Let's make a simple analogy here using non-digital forms of the word:
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(46 Comments)I write a book/article/document/whatever, and I:
1) want to *SHARE* it with a friend or two. I print a copy for each of them and hand it off. The document is now shared. Can they then photocopy it and send it to their friends? Sure, but if the document is intended for their eyes only, I entrust them to keep their integrity.
2) intend it for mass consumption by the public. I send the document to a *PUBLISHER* for mass printing and distribution. They send it to bookstores et. al. and I become a super mega billionaire because I just wrote the best book in the history of the entire universe and employ today's richest people as my household servicefolk (hey, it's my story). Do I get upset that the *PUBLISHER* released my book, instead of printing off a few copies for myself and my friends? What else do you expect when you PUBLISH a document?