Google Seeks to Improve Security
Posted by jonathan at 7:31am EST on 07/19/2007
As a never-ending problem for everyone, security is a huge issue. I have my security issues with where I choose to login to any given email account, web account, ssh host login, or anything of that nature. I need to be very selective. You really never know who is monitoring the connection and/or monitoring the key strokes of a keyboard.
The only time I feel remotely safe is when I’m at home, even then, I still don’t always feel as secure as I’d like.
But the primary issue for Google is search history. Being able to match up cookies with IP addresses linked to specific keyword search terms.
In the coming months, Google will start issuing our users cookies that will be set to auto-expire after 2 years, while auto-renewing the cookies of active users during this time period. In other words, users who do not return to Google will have their cookies auto-expire after 2 years. Regular Google users will have their cookies auto-renew, so that their preferences are not lost. And, as always, all users will still be able to control their cookies at any time via their browsers.
That still seems a bit excessive to me. 3 months or 6 months may seem a little more realistic to me. I personally don’t like my cookies being left on my computer for more than a couple weeks. So every couple weeks, I go through and clear out all my old cookies. I really don’t like people following me around the web.
I take great measures to ensure my security around the web as I’ve seen what it has done to other people in the past.
So, 2 years? Still seems a bit much. They may want to re-consider that again.
