Asher Moses reports: The Privacy Commissioner, Karen Curtis, has completed her investigation into Google’s Wi-Fi spying bungle and found the company breached the Privacy Act. Authorities all over the world are investigating Google, including the Australian privacy watchdog and Australian Federal Police, for sucking up 600GB of “payload data” from unsecured wireless networks over several…
Category: Business
Google WiSpying Hit Congress; National Security Data Could Have Been Gathered
From Consumer Watchdog: Google’s WiSpy snooping could have sucked up and recorded communications from members of Congress, some of whom are involved in national security issues, an investigation by Consumer Watchdog’s InsideGoogle.com has found. Rep. Jane Harman, D-CA, chair of the Intelligence Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Committee and former member of the Intelligence Committee…
Amazon Patent’s Privacy Pratfall
Erik Sherman writes: Against a backdrop of years of vigilance in protecting consumer privacy, a newly public Amazon Patent application raises a wide range of privacy concerns. The Patent Pending envisions making gift recommendations to strangers, leveraging Amazon’s legendary database of consumer data. It speaks of using third-party databases, in addition to its own, to…
Spokeo: CDT’s privacy complaint ‘unwarranted’
Grant Gross reports: A privacy and credit-reporting complaint filed by the Center for Democracy and Technology against people-search Web site Spokeo.com is based on flawed assumptions about the site’s business model, a Spokeo executive said. The CDT complaint, filed with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Wednesday, alleges that Spokeo violates the U.S. Fair Credit Reporting…