Google claims legal defence for listening in to WiFi networks
How does the company that says it wants to be “deserving of great love” justify tapping into home WiFi networks and grabbing snippets of personal information by the truckload?
Simple: listening in to unsecured WiFi networks, according to Google’s lawyers, is perfectly legal. And regrettable as that may sound, US regulators have accepted the defence – though they still feel Google “deliberately impeded” their investigation and “willfully and repeatedly violated” orders to produce information.
Google’s latest privacy breach? Late in the week, a researcher at Stanford University discovered that Google and several other advertising companies were bypassing privacy settings in Apple’s Safari browser.
Although Google admitted it “now started removing these advertising cookies,” the news brought a fresh example of the risks of online browsing to Internet privacy.
Last month the European Commission proposed adding a new “right to be forgotten” to privacy law. This deceptively simple idea is a ticking time-bomb in the booming internet economy. It is also essential – both for Europeans and Americans – to protect personal privacy in the age of pervasive social media and cloud computing, writes Richard Falkenrath, cybersecurity adviser and adjunct senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations.
A list of hacked private data belonging to 537 customers, posted anonymously on the internet on Friday led Dutch telecoms company KPN to shut down email access for two million clients for two days while it reinforced security, writes Matt Steinglass in Amsterdam.
This week, Path, the social networking app, faced criticism for storing users’ information after Arun Thampi, a developer, discovered his iPhone’s address book was uploaded to Path’s servers without his permission.
While Dave Morin, CEO of Path, apologised in a post and vowed to delete the contacts from Path’s servers, tech commentators debated how iOS developers and Apple should deal with access to user data.
Facebook filing flags privacy risks
Getty Images
One thing Facebook’s IPO filing documents make clear is that the company is taking privacy risks seriously. Privacy is mentioned 35 times, mainly as a risk factor.
The company acknowledges that media coverage of privacy lapses, for example, could affect profits.
Microsoft turns to advertising to poke Google
Microsoft, which often lobbies intensively behind the scenes against Google, has for the first time taken its campaign into print. It began a three-day series of adverts in US newspapers on Wednesday taking aim at Google’s latest moves to integrate its services and standardise its privacy policies.
The message: You can no longer trust Google to put its users first.
Google clashes with British MPs over takedown policy
Google was dragged over the coals by a British parliamentary committee on Monday afternoon, as the technology company’s approach to removing illegal content from its search results again came under scrutiny.
Google faces Norwegian public sector ban
Norwegian public sector organisations will be banned from using Google Apps after the Norwegian data protection authorities ruled that the service could put citizens’ personal data at risk.
The data protection authority said Google Apps did not comply with Norwegian privacy laws because there was insufficient information about where data was being kept. The decision came from a test case in Narvik, where the local council had chosen to use Google Apps for their email.
Facebook’s release of 60 new lifestyle apps that let users track the recipes they cooked, the dresses they bought, and the trip to Paris they want to take, are turning the social network into a personal online scrapbook.
The apps, plus Facebook’s opening of its platform to any developer that wants to build on it, are clearly aimed at diversifying the experiences people can have on the site – to stem boredom, and to keep people participating. That’s a sensible business move ahead of the company’s IPO, as it keeps engagement rates up, and that keeps marketers optimistic and spending money.
But is seamlessly sharing the most minute details of daily life truly a way to stay connected with people, even within the limited confines of the internet?
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Older entries
