What are "Advanced Features" in Google Desktop?

link to plain view copy of this article (alternate / mirror; provided by Saoradh)

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File Under:
• [ truth in advertising ]
• [ the Google virutal PC ]
• [ do no evil ]
• [ lying by omission ]

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Google Desktop is primarily a PC search utility.

To use it, you must install it on your PC (this point is clarified because to many people, Google implies online functionality, not PC-based programs).

I. "Advanced Features" = (only) "Personalized News" ?

"Advanced Features" is not, apparently, described in any detail anywhere.

IF the optional function is ONLY what is described by Google, than "Advanced Features" should be renamed as "Customized News Results" -- Because the only function described in "Personalized News Results". But it's not called that, because they don't want to explicitly tell you (hypothetically) that the other "features" are targeted advertising, and tracking for Google Ad service improvements.

Reference #1 : The description provided within the Google Desktop application.

"

Advanced Features

Enable Advanced Features Information about web pages you visit may be sent to Google to personalize features such as the news shown in Sidebar. Other non-personal usage data and crash reports may be sent to Google to improve Desktop. To learn more about our privacy protections, read our Privacy Policy.

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Reference #2 : The Help page (the linked to page from "Advanced Features" link, above)

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By using advanced features, you may be sending information about web sites you visit and non-personal usage information to Google.

The web sites you visit are used to make some features of Google Desktop available to you. For example, in order to personalize the news shown in the Sidebar, Google Desktop sends information on the news pages you're visiting. This does NOT tell us who YOU are. Non-personal usage data, including crash reports, is used to help improve Google Desktop.

Google will not sell or provide personally identifiable information to any third parties, except as otherwise indicated in our privacy policy. To learn more about the privacy protections we have built into this system, read our Privacy Policy.
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Note that they say "some features" and "for example" : this clearly implies that there are some other functions _besides_ just "personalizing the news shown in the Sidebar. These other functions are not defined or explained beyond the fact that you are sending your search history to Google for analysis.

Reference #3 : Using the Sidebar: Personalization

http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=24819&query=Advanced+Features&topic=&type=

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As you may know, when you install Google Desktop, it indexes the contents of your hard drive. Google Desktop uses the information it finds on your hard drive to show you personalized weather, stock quotes you might be interested in, or RSS feeds you might like to add to your Web Clips and Photos gadgets. All of this information is stored only on your computer and is never sent to Google.

If you enabled Advanced Features, articles read on the web or the sidebar will be used to provide other relevant news in your News gadget. To do this personalization, information about the websites you visit is sent to Google. Please be assured that information that personally identifies you, such as your name or email address is never sent to Google. If you'd rather not send this non-personal information, you can disable Advanced Features at any time by following these steps:

1. From your Google Desktop homepage, select the "Desktop Preferences" link.
2. Select the "Other" tab in the blue box near the top of the window.
3. In the "Advanced Features" section, un-check the box next to "Enable Advanced Features"
4. Click the "Save Preferences" button.
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Hypothesis: "Advanced Features" has three primary functions:

1. To show you "targeted advertising" ; that is 'Ads by Google' will be displayed based on the content you have viewed or searched for on any website (this is done automatically and is not intended to be analysied on a per-user basis).

2. To track how users actually use "targeted advertising", so that the data can be used, in aggregate, to refine how ads are displayed so as to produce better "click-through"

3. To provide to you news (RSS and Atom Feeds) and similar 'search' results that are anticipated (by algorith) to be results that you are interested in (in the same way that the Ads are returned; that is, Ads that are anticipated (by algorithym) to be Ads that you will be interested in).

Now, quite frankly, you should probably consider that the fact that Google wants to

• provide targeted advertising and

• track how users, in aggregate, respond to targeted advertising,

to be a relatively small price to pay in exchange for the services provided.

It is NOT that they want to track how YOU use the web, individually; it is more that they just want to be able to track how user X at uses the web so that Ads can be displayed that user X will be MORE LIKELY to click on.

But having said that, if Google really wants to 'do no evil', then they should stop trying to hide the fact that this is really what "Advanced Features" means! Come on Google, just be up-front about it!

II . Using Google Desktop with Different Windows User Accounts

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Google Desktop can now ['now' as of when? As of which release?? - Editor] work on multiple Windows user accounts [on a single PC]. You must be logged in as an administrator to install Google Desktop, but once Google Desktop is installed, it can be enabled on any user account. Google Desktop will create separate indexes for each username, and each index can be accessed only by someone logged in with that username.

Please note that Google Desktop doesn't support fast user switching. You must completely log off one user profile (or exit Google Desktop), before using Google Desktop in another user profile.

If, however, you share your computer and all users log in with the same Windows username and password, Google Desktop will make all users' documents searchable. Google Desktop is a very powerful search application. If you install Google Desktop on a shared computer where all users log in with one username and password, please be aware that one user may accidentally find another's web-based email, AIM chats, files, etc.

If you share your computer and Windows login, you may want to disable search over some types of documents, such as chats, or prevent Google Desktop from searching a particular folder on your hard drive. You can change any of these settings by visiting the Google Desktop Preferences page. Be sure to click "Save Preferences" when you're done.

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> http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=10110