Google Dashboard lifts curtain on stored data

Google Dashboard lets Google users review and delete personal data stored by the company.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Google is proving to be well aware of the uneasiness among the public over the increasing amount of data it stores from users of its services.

Google is launching Google Dashboard, a service that lets you log into a console and see all the personal data that the company maintains on a Google Account user across all its products, from Gmail and YouTube to Blogger and Picasa. It allows users to log into the settings page of their Google account and review links to the personal data stored by Google across many of its products from a single Web page.

Users can delete data, change privacy settings, and read the privacy policies from various accounts on that page, which is scheduled to go live Thursday. Google had been prebriefing news outlets on the announcement, but a YouTube video outlining the service was somehow published on Google's Privacy Channel on YouTube and spotted by the Google Operating System blog.

One of the overarching themes with regards to Google this year has been the increasing discomfort among both the public and the government with the degree to which Google has grown to dominate the Internet. With nearly two-thirds of all Internet searches passing through its servers and growing numbers of people using its Google Docs, Gmail, and YouTube services, Google is a vital gateway to information for Internet users.

Google has tried to placate critics, recently emphasizing that it tries very hard to let users export any data they enter into one of Google's products through the work of the Data Liberation Front. Dashboard is another step in that direction as Google tries to emphasize that users have control over the data it stores on them.

[codynews]

Should make the tinfoil hat crowd very happy

(no, I'm not trying to be disparaging)

Cody

[Super2online]

I hate to state the obvious, but there can boat loads of other info or duplicates their not showing you. Don't know why they would want to, just saying.

[Police_States_of_America]

that might put them in a very sticky situation, legally speaking. of course google is banking off most users never erasing their data, but the geeks like me that do care should be closer to content.

[jeffyablon]

So I look at google.com/dashboard and check out my account. And I like having all my \"stuff\" in one place. I even see that my address is wrong on one item, reflecting a home I moved out of several years ago.

It's neat!

And it does nothing except aggregate my google stuff. It does NOT tell me "what they know about me". It does NOT help manage my security settings; reality: my user name and email address get me in, just as they always did.

IN FACT, from a security standpoint, Google Dashboard is a huge step BACKWARD, as anyone who knows my name and password can now alter all my stuff from one, nice, convenient page!

What were they thinking?

[CNET editors' note: URL removed]

[pcatling]

I don't think outfits like Google expect or want it's customers to think. They arrogantly believe that they can do all that for us. And, we let them!

[George-Anthony]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I am pretty sure all of this info was already available, no? I just finished logging into the "new" Dashboard (side note: great Modest Mouse song), and none of the info provided was new to me or not previously available whenever I logged into "settings/account." Someone please enlighten me.

[metalorn]

Google web history, YouTube favorites, contacts... a marketeer´s dream.

rafael vargas
movieamore.com

[0ri0n]

I may be mistaken, but this service is only if you have a google account. What about managing all of the data collected on you without a google account?

[Kasar99]

I haven't been too concerned, I've been using alternatives since the whole data mining thing came up. The AOL database that led to locating people was enough to convince me. I also run ad blockers and script blocks, though Google analytics is pretty heavily tied into some websites so that can be touchy.

I use Ixquick with a secure sockets layer, so even Comcast doesn't know when I'm searching for utilities to delete iTunes duplicates.