Loek Essers reports: Google’s privacy policy and terms of service violate German data protection law, the Regional Court of Berlin ruled Tuesday. The clauses are too vaguely formulated and can restrict the rights of consumers, said the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV), which brought the case.. The VZBV complained about 13 privacy policy clauses…
Category: Business
French judges probe IKEA chiefs ‘snooping’
Fascinating development in a snooping case first reported last year. From BBC: French prosecutors have opened formal investigations into directors of IKEA France over allegations that they snooped on employees and customers. Chief executive Stefan Vanoverbeke, his predecessor Jean-Louis Baillo, and chief financial officer Dariusz Rychert were arrested on Monday. They are accused of trying…
JP: Docomo to reexplain big data usage
From the Yomiuri Shimbun: As so-called big data—various types of information gathered on a massive scale, such as smartphone locations—becomes widely used, controversy has arisen over how telecom operators should obtain the consent of individuals whose private information may be offered to a third party without their knowledge. NTT Docomo, Inc. provides location information on…
Encrypt the Web Report: Who’s Doing What
The good folks at EFF report: We’ve asked the companies in our Who Has Your Back Program what they are doing to bolster encryption in light of the NSA’s unlawful surveillance of your communications. We’re pleased to see that four companies—Dropbox, Google, SpiderOak and Sonic.net—are implementing five out of five of our best practices for encryption. In addition, we…