Once installed on a computer, Google’s new software, released in a beta test on Thursday, automatically indexes and archives web pages viewed with Internet Explorer, email messages read in Outlook and Outlook Express, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files and chat conversations conducted over AOL Instant Messenger.
According to experts, though, there are inherent security risks when the program is installed on shared computers.
“It’s clearly a very powerful tool for locating information on the computer,” independent security consultant Richard M. Smith told the Associated Press. “On the flip side of things, it’s a perfect spy program.”
According to Smith and others, caches of email messages, including those from web-based email servers, would be available to users as well as private conversations held over IM.
The search engine company, though, contends that the software would only cause a privacy risk for individuals that share one account on a computer.
Since individual instances of the software can only be used with one Windows profile, a second person logging onto a different account would not be able to access information that was not their own.
The software can also be easily turned off by clicking on the Desktop Search icon that appears in the system tray when it is running.