Last updated: 08-Mar-06 10:41 GMT
JOHN INNES
GOOGLE, the internet giant, is planning a massive online facility that could store copies of users' hard drives - a move set to spark alarm among civil liberties campaigners.
Plans for the "GDrive", previously the subject of rumour among computer experts, were revealed accidentally after notes in a slideshow were wrongly published on Google's site.
The device would create a mirror image of data stored on consumers' computer hard drives, letting users search data stored on other computers via Google accounts.