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You are hereWhy Security is Google's Achilles Heel
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2009-07-08 12:09
Google's launch of a new PC operating system on the heels of its announcement ending the "beta" phase for its popular gmail, Calendar, Docs and Talk applications, is happening in the midst of a new era where cyber-security has been made a new national priority and internet security breaches are increasingly serious and commonplace.
An examination of Google's own public representation of its corporate philosophy and design principles shows security/safety is simply not a priority for Google. In many respects, security is viewed as a hinderance to, or a drag on, Google's over-riding goal of speed-efficiency. In Google's philosophy statement, "Ten things Google has found to be true" there is no mention of the importance of security/safety to Google or Google's users. #3 point on the philosophy list says: "Fast is better than slow:"
In reviewing Google's publicly represented "Design Principles," it is remarkable that in listing Google's many design aspirations, there is no aspiration or priority on creating designs that are secure or safe. Either Google has made a mistake in its design principles which have been posted for years, or user security and safety are not considered by Google to be "Googley" aspirations.
My very simple point is that Google is out of balance in its publicly represented philosophy and design priorities in that it puts speed-efficiency above most everything else and clearly above security/safety, which doesn't even warrant a philosophy/design principle mention for the last several years. It may not occur to Google, but security and safety occurs to, and matters to people.
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