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Monday, February 20, 2006

Google Trusted Tester Program

If it ain’t password-protected, then it’s live – be it in a comment in the HTML source, a folder you never linked to, or a JavaScript you just uploaded for internal tests. Especially if Garett Rogers snoops around your servers. This time, he found the Google Trusted Tester Program FAQ*. From the FAQ:

“The Trusted Tester Program gives the friends and family members of Google employees a chance to test early Google confidential betas and let us know what they think. To become a Trusted Tester, you first must be invited by a friend or family member who currently works at Google. You can then log on to the Trusted Tester website with a Google Account in order to access and test out betas of new Google products as they become available.”

Garett says that while a program such as this is quite common around IT companies, the fact that it extends to (unpaid?) friends and families of workers is an interesting spin.

To log-in to the trusted tester program, you can go to google.com/tester and then enter your account name and password – but of course you need to be part of this program for this to work. Otherwise you’ll get a “Invalid request” message back.

*Josue R., who sent me this, asked if I’m in any kind of tester program. The answer is no... I once received an invitation to join a Google AdSense test program, but declined as I didn’t want to accept the attached Non-Disclosure Agreement due to this blog. Otherwise, I’m only a Google Answers Researcher, so Google Answers is the only topic where I would have to ask permission to report on (a permission which so far was always granted).

On a related note, there’s also the Google Evaluation Lab.

[Thanks Josue R., Ionut Alex. Chitu.]

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