January, 2012
Bipartisan Group of House Members Questions Google About New Privacy Policy, Stresses Need for Opt-Out Option
A bipartisan group from the House of Representatives sent a letter today to Google Chief Executive Officer Larry Page asking that he answer a series of questions about the privacy changes Google announced earlier this week.
Google introduced its changes in a Jan. 24, 2012 post on the Official Google Blog titled “Updating our privacy policies and terms of service”, which began with a discussion of the merits of “shorter, simpler privacy policies” and went on to explain that “[o]ur new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.” (more…)
Tags: Google, Google Plus, Opt-out, Privacy
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Supreme Court Rules Government GPS Tracking Is Fourth Amendment “Search,” Splits on Property vs. Privacy Rationale
In a significant decision involving privacy rights and digital data, the U.S. Supreme Court held on Monday that “the Government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search’” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Jones, No. 10-1259, 565 U.S. ___ (Jan. 23, 2012).
In so holding, the Court affirmed the 2010 judgment of the D.C. Circuit reversing respondent Antoine Jones’ conviction on the grounds that the government carried out an unconstitutional search by using the GPS device in violation of the terms of the warrant the government obtained before installing the device. The Supreme Court did not rule on the reasonableness of the search, noting: “We have no occasion to consider this argument. The Government did not raise it below, and the D. C. Circuit therefore did not address it. . . . We consider the argument forfeited.” Slip op. at 12. (more…)
Tags: 4th Amendment, GPS tracking, Privacy, Search and seizure
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EPIC to FTC: Google Search + Google+ = Competition and Privacy Concerns
Hot on the heels of Google’s Jan. 10, 2012 introduction of “Search, plus Your World,” integrating the Google+ social network into Google’s search results, EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) has asked the Federal Trade Commission to review Google’s changes, asserting in a Jan. 12, 2012 letter to the FTC that “Google’s business practices raise concerns related to both competition and the implementation of the Commission’s [2011] consent order.” Google’s modified search service, EPIC explained in its letter, will include
personal data gathered from Google+ in the results of users’ searches, including photos, posts, and business pages of users and their contacts. In addition to the personal information of a user’s contacts, search will also display Google+ business pages and notable Google+ users on the right-hand column of the results page.
In EPIC’s view, these changes “implicate concerns over whether the company prioritizes its own content when returning search results” and raise privacy concerns because (more…)
Tags: Antitrust, Competition, FTC, Google, Google Plus, Privacy, Privacy through obscurity
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EPIC Asks FTC to Investigate Facebook’s “Timeline”
When Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook’s new Timeline feature at the company’s Sept. 22, 2011 f8 developer conference, he described it as “The story of your life . . . . All the stuff from your life.” According to a Sept. 22, 2011 Facebook Blog post,
The way your profile works today, 99% of the stories you share vanish. The only way to find the posts that matter is to click “Older Posts” at the bottom of the page. Again. And again.
. . .
With timeline [sic], now you have a home for all the great stories you’ve already shared. They don’t just vanish as you add new stuff.
The Timeline announcement came toward the end of an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission into Facebook’s privacy practices, culminating in (more…)
Tags: Facebook, FTC, Privacy, Privacy through obscurity, Timeline
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