Inside Google

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Google Ending Privacy Breach Consumer Watchdog Targeted In FTC Complaint

Posted by John M. Simpson

Google apparently is ending an egregious privacy breach involving people who buy apps from its Google Play store using Google Wallet to pay. Consumer Watchdog filed a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission with a copy to California Attorney General Kamala Harris about what Google was doing. The complaint alleged that the Internet giant was violating its privacy policies and its “Buzz” consent agreement with the FTC.

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Google’s Privacy Chief Is Stepping Down

Posted by John M. Simpson

Google’s privacy chief, Alma Whitten, is stepping down the Internet giant confirmed Monday. Since word of her departure came out on April Fools’ Day many folks probably thought this was part of the company’s annual elaborate pranks like its “announcement” of a new service called “Google Nose.”

Google Ruling Shows Need For Do Not Track And Strong Antitrust Action

John M. Simpson

A federal judge’s ruling late Friday in a key privacy case demonstrates the need to implement tough “Do Not Track” rules and to take decisive action on the antitrust front against Google.

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FTC Estimates Google’s Privacy Hack Earned Up To $4 million

Posted by John M. Simpson

One of the things you hear when companies try to minimize the impact of privacy violations is an attempt to claim there was no financial harm to consumers. However, in an interesting development the Federal Trade Commission is now publicly estimating that Google’s hack around Apple’s Safari browser privacy settings earned the Internet giant up to $ 4 million.

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Google Claims Another Wi-Spy “Mistake” After Breaking Promise

Posted by John M. Simpson

Google admitted Friday to the British data protection authorities that it failed to keep its promise to destroy data its Street View cars sucked up from private Wi-Fi networks. True to its form throughout out the Wi-Spy scandal, the Internet giant claimed it was all a mistake.

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They’re Finally Getting Google’s Number

Posted by John M. Simpson

Consumer Watchdog has long held the view that Google’s executives are hypocrites, claiming their mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, while remaining deeply secretive about the company’s activities. It wasn’t a popular view of the Internet giant. I think many people used to see Google as a [...]

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Google Forging Ahead With New Policy Despite More Objections; Fines Needed

Posted by John M. Simpson

Google is forging ahead with its plan to launch its new privacy and data handling policies this Thursday despite objections from regulators on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Google faces questions from Congress; session should be public

Posted by John M. Simpson

Google is facing more questions from Congress. The Internet giant’s deliberate circumventing of privacy settings in Apple’s Safari browser — that’s the one used on iPhones and iPads — is prompting the outrage. The deliberate privacy breach was discovered by Stanford University researcher Jonathan Mayer and reported first by The Wall Street Journal.

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EPIC Files Suit To Block Google’s New Data Policy

Posted by John M. Simpson

Our friends at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) went to court Wednesday to block Google from combining data gathered from its various services without users’ consent.

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Google’s Sad LA Saga Draws To A Close

Posted by John M. Simpson

Google’s sad saga of missed deadlines and unfulfilled promises in attempting to provide the City of Los Angeles with a “cloud” based email and collaboration system appears to be drawing to a close.

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Pushing for online privacy on the East and West Coasts

Posted by John M. Simpson

The week began for me at meetings in the heart of geekdom in Silicon Valley and concluded with consumer and privacy advocates meeting in New York City.  The two sessions are more related than you might first think. The New York meetings, convened by the Consumer Federation of America, were an off-the-record session for consumer [...]

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FTC ‘carefully monitoring’ online tracking

Posted by John M. Simpson

I just received an encouraging letter from the Federal Trade Commission assuring me that its Division of Privacy and Identity Protection is “carefully monitoring the privacy issues associated with online tracking.” The letter, from Maneesha Mithal, the division’s Associate Director, was in response to our recent complaint about companies who said they would not track [...]

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We need a right to be forgotten

Posted by John M. Simpson

I remember as a young newspaper reporter going to different jurisdictions where public records were kept and putting together background information on an individual. I had to have a compelling reason to do it, because although the records were public, it  took considerable effort to gather the information.  With the Internet and the advent of [...]