This is very interesting and I like it, for the most part, because I think a company with lots of money will need to do this to really be effective:
Google bought Postini and is offering small businesses a way to "outsource" their security. Now, there are many aspects of security and this does not exactly cover the things I mentioned in my last post. That's a different animal. The portion of security in this case is scanning emails before they get to you and web site responses before they get to you.
Outsourced Security
The thing about Google, is that they have a lot of really smart people and money. And I have a feeling Google might have a little bit of a bent to help make the world a better place. The way Google can really help would be to consolidate anonymous access of all this data coming from bots and hacked computers, spammers, scammers and criminals, and use it to prosecute the offenders.
This is not an easy task as many criminals are outside the US or perhaps inside the US doing their dirty work through people outside the US or perhaps outside the US masquerading as people inside the US. Anything crossing international borders is going to be tricky and probably involve some politicians.
And in general, tackling this big problem is going to cost a lot of money to stay on top of the analysis to do this thing right - and really stay ahead of the hackers - who are some really smart brains whose day is spent 100% trying to figure out how to crack your password, hack your system, steal the money in your bank account, divert your business to themselevs, etc.
There is one thing about this solution that bothers me however. If Google sets up a bunch of proxy servers for small businesses - are they going to pass through legitimate information about the person making a request on your web site? Or will all the requests look like they are coming from Google? That gives Google a strangle hold on a lot of marketing people which is not a good idea. It also sets up the service to work like AOL which a haven for hackers and criminals who want to hide their identity. That is my only concern so far about this service, which is otherwise great.