Cecilia Kang reports: Verizon Communications said Thursday that it will begin to publish reports early next year on the number of government requests it receives for customer data, setting a significant precedent for the telecommunications industry that has kept that information private. Verizon, the nation’s biggest wireless provider, has been under immense pressure from shareholders…
Category: Business
Google Fined $1.2 Million by Spain’s Privacy Watchdog
Stephanie Bodoni reports: Google Inc. (GOOG) was fined 900,000 euros ($1.2 million) by Spain’s data-protection watchdog for illegally collecting and using users’ personal data. Google is guilty of “three serious violations” of Spanish data-privacy law for collecting personal information across nearly 100 services and products in Spain without in many cases giving details “about what…
Data Broker Removes Rape-Victims List After Journal Inquiry
If you missed Senator Rockefeller’s hearing on data brokers yesterday, Pam Dixon of the World Privacy Forum made a powerful point in her opening statement about how data brokers have no shame. She cited the fact that brokers were selling lists of rape victims’ names for 7.9 cents per name. It didn’t take look for…
Peter Fleischer’s Italian nightmare is finally over
Peter writes: An eight-year legal saga has now come to an end. Yesterday, in Rome, the Italian Supreme Court (Cassazione) acquitted me, as well as two other Googlers, for violating Italian privacy law in a case that stemmed from a user-generated video. Read more on his blog.