I received a note last week requesting that all Google software be removed from our corporate computers. The justification from our CTO was that Google is now secretly packaging with other applications and installing the Google Toolbar without the user’s knowledge and consent.

Personally, I have been a fan of the Google’s Toolbar. Like most others users, I used the toolbar initially to eliminate pop-up advertisements. It seemed once the browser war with Netscape was over, Microsoft was content to sit back and let IE rot on the vine. I guess I cannot blame them since Internet Explorer is not a profit center for the company. However, with latest versions of IE, I cannot really justify having the toolbar installed, but like an old friend I will miss her/him/it.

I can appreiate the CIO’s position. Recently, I’ve had to go to the advanced options and unselect Google’s Toolbar while installing Sun’s Java and Adobe’s Flash player. I don’t appreciate applications secretly being installed without the users knowledge. Forcing the user to go into the Advanced settings to remove the toobar is a weak defense, because they know most users are intimidated by ‘Advanced’ options.

For all those Google fanboys out there that are hoping that Google will overtake Microsoft in the desktop OS and application business, you might want to start questioning why they are packaging their toolbar product with seemingly unrelated applications. What business advantage does Google gain from having search information from a majority of the internet’s userbase and how will they safeguard that information from misuse and abuse.