Open source champion labels Chrome OS ‘careless’

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Google Chrome OS has been slammed as “careless computing” due to its use of the cloud to store users’ data.

Founder of the Free Software Foundation and GNU creator Richard Stallman has raised a number of concerns about the use of the cloud, including loss of control and legal rights.

“In the US, you even lose legal rights if you store your data in a company's machines instead of your own,” Stallman told the Guardian.

“The police need to present you with a search warrant to get your data from you, but if they are stored in a company's server, the police can get it without showing you anything. They may not even have to give the company a search warrant.”

Earlier this month, the search giant was talking up its Google Chrome OS, with chief executive (CEO) Eric Schmidt having some positive words to say about the cloud in particular.

“Before there was no cloud computing alternative - now we have a product which is fast, robust and scalable enough to support powerful platforms,” a company blog said.

“As developers start playing with our beta Cr-48 Chrome OS computer, they’ll see that while it’s still early days it works unbelievably well. You can build everything that you used to mix and match with client software—taking full advantage of the capacity of the web.”

In response to Stallman’s comments, Google pointed IT PRO to two blog posts, both of which covered the company’s focus on cloud security. See here and here for the posts.

Last week, it emerged the first laptops featuring Chrome OS would not appear until the middle of next year, months after the initial planned launch date.

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