Google’s plan to offer computer users a stored mirror
image of their PC’s hard drive has slipped out.
A wrongly filed slideshow presentation, which appeared on
Google’s own website before being pulled by the company, said
Google planned to store “100%” of users’ information.
Such a move would require Google to greatly expand its already
huge storage facilities, but the service would be a magnet for
those users afraid of losing any of their data through system
crashes on their PCs.
Most home computer users still don’t back up their data.
Google could use the service to build further loyalty to its web
portal brand, which already offers search, e-mail, music and
picture storage, video feeds, and desktop tools.
Google is competing against MSN, AOL, Yahoo and others in the
increasingly lucrative on-line advertising space, and loyalty to a
web portal generates a bigger advertising take.
The plans for the storage expansion were discovered by a blogger
looking at the Google website.
Google said the slideshow was not for public consumption.