Google taking over my life

Google started a new service some time ago, Google Calendar, where you can store your appointments in an online calendar, and access it from anywhere via a browser. I think I'm going to use that, it is such a natural extension of the GMail I'm already using extensively. Come to think of it, I'm also using Google's personalized home page, Google's blogging service, Google finance, Google maps, Google's photo album software, and who knows what else in the future. I'd certainly use the rumored Google drive to store data if it would come out. Google, Google, everywhere! Google is quickly becoming as ubiquitous as Microsoft, just with a promise to "not be evil".

Now many people have concerns about privacy. Much of what I do on Google's services is stored somewhere on Google's servers, and could possibly be read and used by them. Storing the password for your online banking on a Google server is probably not a good idea. Although it is probably safer to store it there than on a post-it glued to your screen, and I bet there are thousands of people doing that.

But after a careful consideration of privacy issues by using all different Google services, I realized that all what I am likely to do there is inherently safe for a very mundane reason: my data aren't worth stealing or spying on. Neither are yours, in all likelyhood. An online calendar service is unlikely to have entries like "September 11th: Fly plane into World Trade Center", but rather more likely to contain your dentist appointments and a reminder to not forget you mom's birthday. And frankly, nobody is interested in that. Even if you put your secret liaison with your secretary in your calendar, the only one possibly interested in that would be your wife, while the guys from Google or the Department of Homeland Security couldn't care less. Your mail or blog might contain critical entries about people, for example your boss, but as long as the criticized person isn't reading your blog, nobody is going to care. Not even if you rant about George Bush is somebody likely to come after you. Face it, your life is a boring as mine, and if a guild drama in World of Warcraft is the most interesting thing happening in your life, your data are perfectly safe from snooping.