Joel Stein has a lengthy piece on data mining on Time, in which he describes a lot of the data mining that goes on these days and interviews a number of people in the privacy community. Discussing the “creep factor,” Stein writes: “We have this feeling of being dogged that’s uncomfortable,” Calo says, “but the…
Category: Business
Google Again Sued Over Gmail Content Scanning
Thomas Claburn reports: Attorneys representing former Gmail user Kelly Michaels of Smith County, Texas, have sued Google, claiming that its Gmail service violates users’ privacy by scanning e-mail messages to serve relevant ads. This is not the first time Google has faced such a suit. Another Texas resident, Keith Dunbar, made similar claims in November,…
Pineda and the Law of the Jungle
Chris Hoofnagle writes: A fair amount of misinformation has been generated surrounding the California Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Pineda v. Williams Sonoma, 51 Cal.4th 524, 2011 WL 446921. In Pineda, the Court held that a zip code could qualify as personal information under the State’s Song-Beverly Act. This means that companies that collect the…
UK businesses must ‘wake up’ to new EU law on cookies, Information Commissioner warns
From the ICO, this press release: Businesses and other organisations running websites in the UK must ‘wake up’ to the fact that EU legislation, which will require them to get consent in order to store or access information on consumers’ computers, is coming into force soon, Information Commissioner Christopher Graham will say today in a…