Google Search Book :EMC take on Google Desktop search

While search giant Google works to reassure its users that the latest version of its Desktop Search application does not pose the security threat some privacy watchdogs have said it will, at least one of the company's enterprise partners has confirmed that it will continue to support the tool in its products.

In January, storage market leader EMC announced that it was adding Google Desktop Search to one of its Documentum business unit's ECM (enterprise content management) products.

EMC added the technology, which claims the ability to mine the data stored on a PC's hard drive much as Google's Web search indexes the Internet, in the name of offering its customers yet another avenue for querying corporate data as part of its ECI (Enterprise Content Integration) search package.

On Feb. 9, Google introduced a beta of its next-generation version of the PC application, Google Desktop 3, including a new feature dubbed "Search Across Computers" that has caused some industry watchers to label the new iteration of the software as a potentially serious privacy risk.

Search Across Computers allows people with registered Google accounts to mine for information stored on multiple computers they work on, and garner information from their desktops remotely from other devices.

According to some experts, including lawyers for IT industry watchers Electronic Frontier Foundation, the function could make personal or corporate data "more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants" while also providing a "convenient one-stop-shop for hackers" were they to obtain a user's Google password and therefore be able to access any data shared with Search Across Computers.

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