Google Next Target: Store 100% of User Data (Link)

Looks like Google is planning to take over the world through offering free online storage. The news slipped from a presentation made by Google last week. The following are some notes from Google Analyst Day 2006 presentation (slide 19):

"Store 100% of User Data
With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including: emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc).

We already have efforts in this direction in terms of GDrive, GDS, Lighthouse, but all of them face bandwidth and storage constraints today. For example: Firefox team is working on server side stored state but they want to store only URLs rather than complete web pages for storage reasons. This theme will help us make the client less important (thin client, thick server model) which suits our strength vis-a-vis Microsoft and is also of great value to the user.

As we move toward the "Store 100%" reality, the online copy of your data will become your Golden Copy and your local-machine copy serves more like a cache. An important implication of this theme is that we can make your online copy more secure than it would be on your own machine.

Another important implication of this theme is that storing 100% of a user's data makes each piece of data more valuable because it can be access across applications. For example: a user's Orkut profile has more value when it's accessible from Gmail (as addressbook), Lighthouse (as access list), etc."

The 100% online storage offer .... Hmmm ... is this good or evil? This is what John Battelle said about the idea of Store 100% of User Data idea:

"The more I think about this, the more I'm not comfortable with the idea of having all my data in one place. Any place. Google or otherwise. It simply makes abuse too easy.".

Couldn't agree more!

Read Also:
In a world with infinite storage, bandwidth, and CPU power (Geeking with Greg)
Google Analyst Day 2006
Google lets slip talk of online storage service (Reuters)
Going for a GDrive with Google (CNet)
Store 100%: No Thanks (John Batter's Searchblog)