Google Tutor

Google Dashboard: Informative, or Pointless?

Posted: 12 Nov 2009 05:00 AM PST

I briefly mentioned yesterday some concerns regarding privacy, in the context of storing our personal data (documents, spreadsheets, pictures) with Google. The many Google services we use (Gmail, Picasa, Docs, Maps (my maps), etc) can create a sense that Google is infiltrating all aspects of our lives. To make matters worse, Google can collect how we use their applications, and know far more about us that we perhaps would want our own spouse to know.

For example, take Google Maps: with my maps you can create your own favorite spots, save them in a map, and use it later. Essentially, Google might not know for sure where you have been, but it certainly knows where you would like to go or potentially have gone in the past. The issue is altogether more serious with Google Latitude, which could literally follow your every move, if you let it.

Not surpringly, people might get concerned with their personal data and how Google stores it. In an attempt to address this, Google designed “Google Dashboard“, which is a simple interface showing all the different Google services you use (when logged into your account), and how you use them.

Google Dashboard seems only moderately useful to me, because it does not allow you to change your privacy settings for each application directly. Others have also noted that you still need to go deep into the privacy settings for each application separately, and if you do not already know where to find these settings, it is not a given that Google Dashboard is going to be very helpful. The one benefit of Google Dashboard is that it brings all links to each one of the application’s settings pages together in one spot. If you would like to do a complete overhaul of all your privacy settings for each Google application you use, then this would be a handy way of making sure you do not forget one.

However, I do not think Google Dashboard is all it promises to be: it gives the same amount of privacy control as each Google product already does. There is no centralized privacy control that changes the settings for all your Google applications, and it is definitely not telling me anything I did not already know about my usage. Frankly, knowing that I have 8000 messages in Gmail is not shocking to me, and I knowing how many pictures I store on Picasa tells me very little about how Google uses my data.

Nonetheless, it is a handy overview, particularly if you want to see clearly exactly how much you use Google, and how difficult it would be to go without all these great services and applications.

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Google Drops Prices on Data Storage – But is it a Deal?

Posted: 11 Nov 2009 09:27 AM PST

I am sure I am not the only one who emails herself documents, pictures, and spreadsheets as an extra back-up precaution. Basically, using my Gmail account as an additional data storage device. Numerous people upload their pictures onto Picasa, documents to Google Docs, and save every single message they receive in Gmail. Some of us upload full resolution pictures to Picasa, not only to share them with friends and family, but to store a backup copy away from our own computers, or even away from our own home. In case of a fire, natural disaster, or computer breakdown this is a really good precaution to take with the images or documents that are important to us.

However, as we produce more data, and more images, our storage needs increase. When Gmail was launched, it offered a (no longer) astonishing amount of space: 1 GB. Nowadays the storage capacity of Gmail has increased sevenfold, and that translates to a lot of mail! I personally like to keep my inbox relatively small, compared to some others. Right now, I am packing away about 8000 emails, which I would love to bring down by about half once I have the time to go through them all and delete the ones that are no longer relevant or important. Ultimately, I feel my ability to find important data diminishes exponentially as a function of the increasing number of messages in my inbox. However, if you do want to keep all your messages, or have to, and are running out of space, Google also offers additional storage space for a relatively modest cost.

The storage you can buy from Google comes in different sizes. The storage space is also shared between Gmail and Picasa, and is in addition to your current free quota. Google has been dropping the prices of storage, as the cost of hardware and infrastructure required for the same amount of storage reduces as well. All in all, this is quite nice, but the question is whether the price paid is truly worth it.

First, let’s take a look at Google’s storage plans

You can buy extra storage here, and depending on your needs it comes in different sizes and there are different price tags associated with them:

20 GB costs $5 per year.
80 GB costs $20.00 per year.
200 GB costs $50.00 per year.
400 GB costs $100.00 per year.
1 TB costs $256.00 per year.

Each plan comes to $0.25 per GB of storage, so there is no savings involved with purchasing a larger plan. As a result, it is smart to start with the smallest plan and work your way up if needed.

It is doubtful that Google is offering this service at cost though, so I was a bit dissappointed that each of the plans comes down to the same per GB cost. I would have expected that someone purchasing a TB of storage would deserve a little bit of a discount, based on just sheer volume. In fact, the 1TB plan seems marginally more expensive than any of the other ones, at an average cost of $0.256 per GB of storage.

The Benefits of Buying Google Storage

Why would you pay year in year out for storage, when you can just purchase an external hard drive once? This was my first instinct when I started thinking about this concept, but although buying storage real estate with Google seems more expensive than just buying a hard drive, there are some serious benefits involved in doing so:

The virtual aspect: If your computer breaks down, is stolen, or your house burns down, Google will still have a copy of your documents and pictures stored safely on their servers.
The portability aspect: wherever you go, your data travels with you. You can access and share pictures and documents from any other computer, anywhere in the world. You can download them directly to another machine, instead of having to send them. This can save time, and money. When you are traveling it can be particularly handy if you do not want to carry around an additional hard drive with data (few people can fit 1TB on their laptops), or you don’t want to bring your own computer altogether.
Wear and tear on hardware: Although you pay a yearly fee, we can assume that the cost of storage will continue to decrease and become more affordable as time goes on. The same happens with hard drive prices. However, your external hard drive might break. It might do so at the worst possible time (all data is lost!), and the replacement cost of your hard drive also needs to be factored in. I have spend a few hundred dollars over the past few years in data storage costs, and 100% of that involved purchasing new hard drives. I did have a few hard drives break down on me (without doing anything to cause this, there was no dropping of the equipment and I also did not throw it against a wall…). If you take all these factors into account, virtual storage does not come at a much higher premium. I am also assuming (anyone can correct me if I am wrong) that Google backs up the data entrusted to them, meaning it is relatively safe to assume you will not suddenly lose everything. However, you still need to do your own due diligence and make some extra copies of the really important stuff if you want to be sure.

The one aspect that does concern me a little is privacy. Who can guarantee how private our data is when it is in the hands of a third party? I trust Google, but things could still go wrong. I think I would be very selective with what I store with Google, and might not entrust my most sensitive documents to them. Having said this, I haven’t heard of any privacy issues concerning Google, and it probably will not be an issue in the future. However, just the thought that someone could break into a server and steal my private data scares me enough to restrict myself from storing anything online that should not fall into the wrong hands. Aside from financial information and data concerning my personal identity, there are still many GB of documents and pictures that can find a safe haven in Google storage.

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