Google and Bon Jovi are beginning to have a lot in common for me. You never know where they’ll show up. The latest Google sighting: Google Secure Access Beta, an encrypted WiFi service now available via Google WiFi hotspots at select San Francisco locations where Google engineers hang out. Why does it exist? According to the FAQ, one of those engineers “recognized that secure WiFi was virtually non-existent at most locations. As a result, he used his 20% project time to begin an initiative to offer users more secure WiFi access. Google Secure Access is the result of this endeavor.” What’s really nifty is how the free service works — by rerouting the user’s internet traffic through Google’s servers, encrypting it and sending it back. Translation: protecting your privacy means giving Google access.
I’m writing this from a Borders via T-Mobile, which offers some insight into the potential beyond WiFi itself. For instance, when I logged in here I was offered free access to the Online Journal, a sampler of music from Borders, a video interview with an author and other content designed to match this location or chain. If I use T-Mobile at Starbucks I’ll get a different set of customized content. No reason Google couldn’t use WiFI access the same way.
I’m trying to imagine how this would go over if it had Microsoft in the name instead of Google. For that matter, if you swap Microsoft for Google in some of the company’s most recent moves, the world domination lingo would start to fly. (I’m just glad I wasn’t drinking anything when I read John Paczkowski’s headline: “Google: All your Internet are belong to us.”) As it is, conspiracy theories are starting to fly over the idea of Google’s servers as the hub of the universe.
Om | SEW | Inside Google | Techdirt
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