Google Glass isn't publicly available yet, and even the Explorer edition is supposed to only be for US residents, but that's not stopping the Canadian government from getting out in front of what it considers to be several privacy issues surrounding the device. Data protection authorities in Canada sent a letter today to Google CEO Larry Page, asking the company to take part in a "real dialogue" about the "significant privacy issues" related to Google Glass. Here's a portion of the letter, which is signed by Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart and 36 provincial and internatio [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google | Google: Glass | Google: Privacy | Legal: Privacy | Top News

Following missives from Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple over the past 72 hours, Yahoo issued its own disclosure statement last night about law-enforcement data requests. Signed by CEO Marissa Mayer and General Counsel Ron Bell, the statement said that there had been "between 12,000 and 13,000" data requests during the past six months: We’ve worked hard over the years to earn our users’ trust and we fight hard to preserve it. To that end, we are disclosing the total number of requests for user data that law enforcement agencies in the U.S. made to us between December 1, 2012 and [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Legal | Legal: PRISM | Legal: Privacy | Yahoo | Yahoo: Business Issues

Following the NSA-PRISM surveillance revelations last week and "direct-access rebuttals" by other major tech firms, Apple has released a similar statement denying that the government has unfettered access to its users' data. Apple said, "We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer content must get a court order." The company said it was "authorized [by the US] to share" and that in the past six months "Apple received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement for customer data. Between 9,000 and [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: Siri | Channel: Industry | Legal | Legal: PRISM | Legal: Privacy

Last night, what might be called a "transparency battle" erupted between Google and Facebook following Facebook's disclosure of government-related user-data requests: For the six months ending December 31, 2012, the total number of user-data requests Facebook received from any and all government entities in the U.S. (including local, state, and federal, and including criminal and national security-related requests) – was between 9,000 and 10,000. These requests run the gamut – from things like a local sheriff trying to find a missing child, to a federal marshal tracking a fugitive, to a p [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: International | Facebook: Legal | Facebook: Privacy | Google: International | Google: Legal | Google: Privacy | Legal: PRISM | Legal: Privacy | Microsoft: Privacy | Top News

An enormous amount has already been written about the National Security Agency's (NSA's) "domestic spying" since The Guardian's initial revelations about the secret collection of telco company records just a couple of days ago. That was followed 24 hours later by even more explosive revelations from The Washington Post of supposedly direct NSA access to the servers of major US Internet companies such as Apple, Google, Yahoo and Facebook. Almost all the companies named in top-secret slides exposed by The Washington Post have issued strong denials -- in the case of Google, multiple denials [...]

Related Topics: Features & Analysis | Legal: General | Legal: PRISM | Legal: Privacy

Tech companies are hand-in-hand cooperating to let the US government perform on-going monitoring of people, or at least their data. Right? Probably not. They are probably doing something very different, providing data when legally compelled to on a case-by-case basis. Understanding these two things is helpful to avoid some of the PRISM hysterics going on right now. The PRISM Monitoring System Around this time Thursday, the Washington Post and the Guardian had made the case that major tech companies were involved in a PRISM program that, to quote the whistleblower who provided the information [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features & Analysis | Legal: PRISM | Legal: Privacy | Top News

Tech companies named in reports to be part of the NSA's "PRISM" data gathering program have strongly denied participating in programs giving "direct access" to their servers. But the New York Times is now reporting this may be because they provided indirect ways for the system to at least selectively request and receive data, after legal review. The New York Times story, Tech Companies, Bristling, Concede to Federal Surveillance Program, may give the impression that all the named companies were part of the PRISM system, for those who have been following the story. But it never names PR [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features & Analysis | Legal: PRISM | Legal: Privacy

Over the years, Google has received several letters from the US Congress worried that it is somehow invading people's privacy. Now Congress, along with the Obama Administration and the US judicial system, is accused of invading the privacy of people who use Google's services. I thought the turnabout would be fair play, a letter from Google back to Congress. The letter below isn't real, but the points and unanswered questions are. I've written in the style of the latest letter Google received from Congress, last month about Google Glass. As Google professes it is not part of any data g [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Legal | Google: Privacy | Legal: PRISM | Legal: Privacy

Both Google and Facebook gave the press statements yesterday denying involvement with the US National Security Agency's PRISM data gathering program. Today, both are making that statement more strongly and taking it directly to its users. Google To Users Writing today on the Google blog, Google CEO Larry Page and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said: We have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our d [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Privacy | Legal: PRISM | Legal: Privacy

It turns out that for the past roughly 6 years, the US government has been "collecting" or "mining" US citizens' personal data and communications from telcos and Internet companies -- effectively "spying" on US citizens. Those data, it has been alleged, come in large part from direct access to the servers of most of the Internet's biggest brands: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, AOL and others. (Dropbox was apparently cited in leaked documents as “coming soon.”) These bombshell disclosures follow yesterday's discovery that the US government was collecting Verizon telephon [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Facebook: Privacy | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Legal: PRISM | Legal: Privacy | Microsoft: Privacy | Top News

[caption id="attachment_47324" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Source: Washington Post, The Guardian[/caption] Both the Washington Post and The Guardian are out with stories saying that several major Internet companies gave the US National Security Agency direct access to user data on their servers by participating in what's been named as the PRISM program. But, Google, Apple & Facebook flat-out deny being in that program, while Yahoo and Microsoft have issued general denials. Google, it denied participation in PRISM to us, when asked specifically about the program, plus gave us the [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Channel: Consumer | Google: Privacy | Legal: PRISM | Legal: Privacy | Top News

In 2006, AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo all complied with Bush Administration Justice Department (DOJ) subpoenas to turn over search records -- without a fight. The subpoenas were issued pursuant to the Child Online Protection Act of 1998, which the Supreme Court had previously ruled to be unconstitutional. The requests were made anyway, and Google was the only major search engine to resist. Whether the Bush Administration anti-child porn search subpoenas were a pretext for other types of inquiries we'll never know. But now, history is repeating itself. This time it's the Obama Administration see [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features & Analysis | Google: Legal | Google: Privacy | Legal: Privacy

In the midst of the 2013 Google I/O developer conference currently being held in San Francisco, Google CEO Larry Page received a formal letter from eight-members of congress addressing Google Glass privacy issues. The letter from Congress outlined eight specific areas of concern, asking specifically: Does Google have plans to prevent Google Glass from unintentionally collecting data about the user/non-user without consent? (After referencing  Google's agreement to settle charges in 2010 for collecting information from encrypted wireless networks without permission.) What proactive st [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Glass | Google: Legal | Google: Privacy | Legal: Privacy | Politics | Top News

Digital privacy is a complex issue, little understood by the public. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), as part of its ongoing mission to educate the public, has released its third annual "Who's Got Your Back" privacy scorecard for Internet companies. Below is the 2013 scorecard. Compared with the previous two years (below), results appear to be improving overall. Twitter and ISP Sonic.net are the big winners with perfect scores. Dropbox, Google and LinkedIn also do well, while Apple, Amazon, AT&T, Verizon, MySpace (does it still exist?) and Yahoo essentially get failing grades [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Legal: Privacy | Twitter | Twitter: Legal

A recent survey conducted by the USC Annenberg Center for Digital Future and Bovitz Inc., revealed "Millennials" (those 18-35)  have a different attitude than Internet users 35 years and older when it comes to sharing their personal data online with businesses. While 70 percent of Millennials agreed with the statement, "No one should ever be allowed to have access to my personal data," 56 percent said they would share their location with a nearby company in return for a relevant coupon or promotional deal. Only 42 percent of users 35 years and older agreed they would share their location. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Privacy | Google: Privacy | Internet Marketing Industry: Stats | Legal: Privacy | Microsoft: Privacy | Statistics: Online Behavior

It's an ongoing challenge for marketers: users say they don't like to be tracked, but they also say they prefer getting relevant ads and messages as they use the Web. This battle over data extends into several marketing areas -- search, social media, email and more. Part of this mix is third-party tools that get in the middle by letting users prevent websites from tracking their behavior. One such tool, Disconnect.me, just announced a substantial upgrade: The second version of its app -- an extension that works in Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers -- lets users see and block more than [...]

Related Topics: Analytics | Channel: Consumer | Legal: Privacy | Top News

According to a recent Ars Technica article, two CMA Communications customers have reported banner ads being injected directly into webpages on popular websites, and they are blaming the ISP. Earlier this year, Robert Silvie and Zachary Henkel noticed banner ads running along the bottom of pages belonging to companies like Apple, Walmart, Target, Bing and eBay. Both Silvie and Henkel were using Internet service provider CMA Communications when they spotted the suspicious banner ads. Knowing that Bing didn't run commodity banner ads at the bottom of its home page, Silvie first thought it w [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising | Domaining | Legal: General | Legal: Privacy

When it comes to the issue of privacy, it seems that Google and Europe are on opposite sides of an ocean, metaphorically speaking. Reuters reports this morning that frustrated European authorities "plan to take action" against Google for its failure to satisfy them regarding its consolidated privacy policy. Google has maintained that its privacy policy conforms to all European laws and regulations. Privacy regulators from France and across Europe have heavily criticized the "consolidated" Google privacy policy and say it overreaches. However, they've stopped short of declaring it "illegal." [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Google: Privacy | Legal: Privacy | Top News

The AP is reporting that a German court has invalidated a decision of the German privacy regulator, which opposes Facebook's real names/identities policy. Privacy regulators oppose the Facebook policy on the grounds that German and European privacy and free-speech rules prohibit a ban on fake names. However the court's decision is not based on German law. According to the AP report, "The administrative court in northern German Schleswig argued in its ruling Thursday that German privacy laws weren't applicable because Facebook has its European headquarters in Ireland - which has less far-rea [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Legal | Facebook: Privacy | Legal: Privacy | Top News

It's been a week since Microsoft went on the attack against Gmail, launching its "Scroogled" campaign portraying Gmail as a privacy monster that reads your emails for ad targeting purposes. How's that been working out? To date, the Microsoft-backed petition against Gmail's practices has gained about over 6,000 signatures -- equal to about 0.002% of Gmail's user base. The Petition To Nowhere At the Scroogled site, Microsoft invites people to sign an online petition. In the week it has been up, it's gathered about 5,600 signatures: That's hardly an overwhelming response, especially consider [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Features & Analysis | Google: Business Issues | Google: Critics | Google: Gmail | Google: Privacy | Legal: Privacy | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Outlook | Microsoft: Privacy | Top News