"All users be aware: Google have now released an instant messenger based on jabber, but the new google messenger has a VERY dodgy privacy policy: http://www.google.com/talk/privacy.html - in this policy are such gems as recording "who you talk to" and when you talk to them, and selling of statistical data to marketing companies. Be very scared people, be very scared."
These are not my words (they were contained in a global IRC mesage from Brain over at ChatSpike), but I'm not at all surprised that Google has adopted such a hearty information-gathering approach to its IM software.
I don't use IM all that often, so I'll probably just stick with AOL's protocol (though not their client - AdiumX is all I'll ever use) instead of laying my life out on the line for Google. I do use gmail, but I'm comfortable with having computers scan my email to present targeted ads. I don't know how much I'd enjoy knowing that my real-time conversations were being recorded by the service provider-- even if they only record the fact that the conversation took place and not the messages themselves.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
The Geek Code desperately needs updating, but in any case here's mine (as of 2010-02-28):
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GIT/MU d+(-) s:+>: a C++> ULXB++++$ L+++ M++ w--() !O !V P+ E---
W+++ N o++ K? PS PE++ Y+ PGP t !5 X- R- tv+@ b++ DI++++ D--- e*++
h--- r+++ y+++ G+
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
If you really care about knowing what that all means, you either know the code already, or you can get it decoded for you here.
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