• by Shankar Gupta , January 31, 2006

Google Monday updated its toolbar, adding a sign-in function that allows users to access all of their personalized services--including Gmail, Google groups, and a customized home page--with the click of a button.

With the update--which also suggests and spellchecks search queries--Google is obviously hoping that increased personalization will give Web users reason to be loyal, and search exclusively on its engine.

But some observers say that the public may spurn this extra personalization, given that now--far more than even one month ago--Web users are increasingly anxious about how much information Google knows, thanks to a well-publicized court battle about whether Google can be subpoenaed.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice asked Google to turn over records of one million searches conducted in a one-week period and records for one million sites. The data is intended for use in defending an anti-pornography bill, and a federal court is expected to decide late next month whether Google will have to comply.

In the meantime, the prospect of the government subpoenaing records from Google has spawned a wave of renewed concern about online privacy.

"All of a sudden there's this new lens that people are looking at Google through," said search expert Gary Stein. "There were always these privacy concerns, but they seemed to be theoretical or hypothetical." Now, he said, the subpoena has given the issue new currency.

The watchdog group Electronic Frontier Foundation agreed. "People very well could be wary. Google collects a lot of information about you when you search, and if you attach more information to your account, like if you have a G-mail account, those are more connections that Google can make," said Rebecca Jeschke, spokeswoman for the group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It fought the subpoena from the DOJ [Department of Justice], but that doesn't mean they don't have that information for the next subpoena."

According to the Google Toolbar's privacy page, the only personally identifiable information collected by the toolbar is with respect to the account services. "Except for information sent through Toolbar for use with a separate Account-based service such as Gmail, we do not associate any of the information that Toolbar sends with other personal information about you," the privacy page states. "However, it is possible that a URL or other page information sent to Google may itself contain personal information." According to the page, such information "may be retained" in the company's records.

Google did not return telephone calls for this article.