If Online storage & back truly is Google's next big thing (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060305-6316.html), the question is: will people trust it with their data? A free online storage system is very enticing...
It's not just whether you trust Google... It's also the governments of where that data resides. Ultimately they can probably gain access, one way or another. "No" for me.
I trust Google more than any other company online, but that's just me. So my answer is a definite yes!
I might trust Google more than other companies, but I still don't trust them enough to let them store sensitive information.
Google thus far has a fantastic record for security. Who is the 'they' you refer to that can gain access?
think about the amount if information you store on your PC(s). What percentage of it is so sensitive that it could be a problem if accessed? In my case, I'd say less than 5%
Say you trust Google... You then also need to trust the people in your street who can sniff your packets because they're on the same cable/wire. You then also have to trust everybody working at your ISP as well as their partners. You then have to trust all the companies who run the infrastructure between you and the server the data will end up at. You then have to trust everybody and Google, including their partners and hardware suppliers. You then have to trust the government that ultimately sets the rules in that particular country where the data is at that time. It can be the US government demanding data, it can be an EU country and some EU resolution demanding data or data on data. Too many variables for my liking. E-mail on their servers is bad enough as it is. It obviously depends what sort of data. The odd mp3 might be OK in terms of sensitivity but anything individual, I don't know. It's not as if a new hard disk is that expensive and you can set up your own ftp server foo cheap should you desperately need access remotely.
I would like it to back up my music collection but definitly not any documents or anything that was created by me.
.00001% of the capacity of my harddrive contains something I might deem sensitive and I typically don't even leave this stuff on my computer for longer than is necessary. important stuff is backed up on to usb drives and cds. everything else, I would gladly put on google's servers.
You can always encrypt everything - PGP Drive + GDrive and your data is as safe as your memory (to remember the password )
If you really don't trust them all, you wouldn't even be sending an email. Or using any sort of online backup solution whatsoever. But that's not the consideration here, I'm talking about GDrive specifically; as in trusting Google to be your data backup provider. Most likely there will be a decent level of encryption on the transfers (like accessing gmail via https), that would at least negate any worry about the first three variables
I trust Google more than any other company, but I don't trust sensitive data to any third party. To keep data safe I prefer a good disaster recovery plan including daily backups and off-site server.
I absolutely agree. I want full control over my data and access to it. Google is a search company, I do not want them seraching my private data and "accidentally" making it available to others or otherwise capitalizing from any information contained therein. The fact Google caved in to the demands Chinese government in order to access that market sets an awful precedent in terms of how they may treat individuals who use their servers for backups. You cannot trust companies which place business above ethics.
If there was a choice for "maybe some things" I would vote. I could see using it for moving large files between work and home. But nothing private or sensitive in any way.
As long as it's not banking information or any other rather important things I don't have a problem with putting anything on there. Don't have anything special to hide anyway
I would trust my stuff is ok on Gdrive, but I woudn't place something on it, and keep it there without an additional backup of the data.