Google Bad for Privacy

Defcon -- A well-known researcher specializing in website security has strongly criticized safety on Google, arguing the world's biggest search engine needlessly puts its millions of users at risk.

"Google is and will be and always has been vulnerable," Robert Hansen, CEO of secTheory, told a standing-room-only audience at the Defcon security conference in Las Vegas. "They haven't been open with consumers. Ultimately, this all comes down the the fact that they just want to track you guys."At issue is Google's policy of hosting untested third-party applications that users can automatically embed into personalized Google home pages.

During a talk titled "Xploiting Google Gadgets: Gmalware & Beyond," Hansen and fellow researcher Tom Stracener laid out a variety of attacks that can be unleashed using the programs.