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(rt) And you thought Microsoft was one invasive monopoly too many!

Google Labs have released the beta version of a Web Accelerator which is supposed to cut down your browsing time by operating as a proxy, storing prefetched web pages, caching pages on their systems, parallel downloads, differential fetching, compression, etc.

However, what it also constitutes is arguably the most audacious and blatant piece of spyware ever visited upon the global Web.

From their documentation:

Google will receive your requests for unencrypted pages (those with “HTTP:”, not “HTTPS:”, at the beginning of the URL), along with information such as the date and time of the request, your IP address, and computer and connection information

If you enter personally identifiable information (such as an email address) onto a form on an unencrypted web page, some sites may send this information through Google. Whenever your computer sends cookies with browsing or prefetching page requests for unencrypted sites, we temporarily cache these cookies in order to improve performance

In order to speed up the display of pages generally, Google Web Accelerator may store copies of web pages, including prefetched pages that you did not visit, in the Google Web Accelerator cache on your machine. This is separate from your browser’s cache, which only identifies pages that you actually visited.

Source:
→ Google Web Accelerator support page

Let’s see what this implies, if you’re actually clueless enough to install this thing:

• All repeat ALL your surfing habits will be 100% transparent to Google – a corporation whose top executives are known to have the strongest ties (read: security clearances) with government bodies such as the NSA, the world’s largest intelligence agency. And we’re talking of literally every single bit (no pun intended) of whatever you happen to view, surf, download. (Currently, Google says they’re not funneling SSL based traffic through their systems – but they’ll still be aware of your accessing https servers, whenever and wherever you are doing it. Also, this policy can easily be overridden by a simple turn of the switch …)
• Google the media company that has an established track record of trying to steal their advertising partner agencies’ high net worth clients (in short: their partners’ very means of making a living!) will be privy to any and all cookies furbished by web sites. This enables them to build an almost comprehensive database of online vendors’ and buyers’ behavior, sales strategies, locations, time factors, etc. etc. – which, when properly processed, will reveal just about everything relating to real life online commerce and its participating parties.

Note that this is only a first assessment! Graywolf – see link below – sums it up most succintly on Threadwatch (typos corrected):

The amount of data they are amassing is really scary. They are developing more and more applications to gather as much data from as many sources you can’t help but be worried. If any other company did this they would absolutely be labeled as spyware.

You can read a first technical evaluation on SearchEngineWatch:
→ New Google Software Attempts to Speed Up Your Web Browsing Experience

Here’s the most recent buzz including some highly critical voice (yours truly included) on Threadwatch
→ Google Web Accelerator

[Update]
Don’t miss out on this excellent Threadwatch posting by claus outlining how Google is aiming to become the global proxy (did we hear someone muttering “world dominance”?):
→ EU Furthers Plans for Google Library Alternative

Also, make you sure read our latest piece on the Google proxy service’s new IPs here:
↗ New Google Proxy IP Range for Web Accelerator Detected

[Update]
Here’s some more you don’t want to miss out on:
↗ The Google Web Accelerator Fiasco
↗ The Google Web Accelerator Fiasco, Part Two
↗ fantomTip:
How To Block Google’s Web Accelerator

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