Wednesday, April 19th, 2006 - 12:02 AM

Google Talk… spyware?!

Recently, my Google Talk silently updated itself (hey!). This update apparently removed the ability to disable idle detection, resulting in Google Talk advertising me as being available to chat whenever I touch my computer.

I turn off idle detection because sometimes (often, in fact) when I’m using my computer, I don’t want to talk to anyone. Sure, I could log out of Google Talk or set myself as busy… but I don’t need Google to know my usage patterns, and I don’t mind people saying stuff to me even if I’m busy. I just don’t want to feel obligated to answer right away.

I spent a few minutes looking for the option to disable this invasion of my personal privacy, but didn’t find it… so I uninstalled Google Talk. Oh well.