Privacy
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Creating stronger privacy controls inside Google
In May we announced that we had mistakenly collected unencrypted WiFi payload data (information sent over networks) using our Street View cars. We work hard at Google to earn your trust, and we’re acutely aware that we failed badly here. So we’ve spent the past several months looking at how to strengthen our internal privacy and security practices, as well as talking to external regulators globally about possible improvements to our policies. Here’s a summary of the changes we’re now making. First, people : we have appointed Alma Whitten as our director of privacy across both engineering and product management.Score for privacy rights: In a 4-to-3 vote, the Supreme Court of Ohio has ruled that police has no right to search your phone without a search warrant, overruling previous lower court decisions on the matter. This is great news. In the State of Ohio vs Antwaun Smith, the Supreme Court has declared the search of Smith's cellphone—who was arrested at the time on drug charges—to be unconstitutional, breaking the protection against unreasonable search provided by the Fourth Amendment. The court has decided that cellphones are "capable of storing a wealth of digitized information" and, as such, they should be considered private. Therefore, police should obtain a search warrant before "entering" into the phone to look for evidence against a subject.
Privacy Win: Cellphone Search Without Warrant Declared Illegal -
Your Cellphone Is Subject to Warrantless Searches in California
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The real cost of free | Cory Doctorow | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Last week, my fellow Guardian columnist Helienne Lindvall published a piece headlined The cost of free , in which she called it "ironic" that "advocates of free online content" (including me) "charge hefty fees to speak at events". Lindvall says she spoke to someone who approached an agency I once worked with to hire me for a lecture and was quoted $10,000-$20,000 (£6,300-£12,700) to speak at a college and $25,000 to speak at a conference. Lindvall goes on to talk about the fees commanded by other speakers, including Wired editor Chris Anderson, author of a book called "Free" ( which I reviewed here in July 2009 ), Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde and marketing expert Seth Godin.
Found this really interesting - I am a bit of a technophobe, but found his argument against regulation of the web very compelling. I do not download for free but my sons do visit these sites and i am concerned about anyone being sanctioned or 'criminalised' for this practice as I agree people will always find a way to foil the system. allowing free acess to an artists work can lead to them making money - merchandise, going to the gig, buying a hard copy etc. today nothing is done in isolation, (cause and effect ). the proposed regulations Cory talks about are extremely worrying by Dec 21
The privacy industry: Scare and sell « BuzzMachine
At two privacy conferences—one in New York, the other right now in Victoria, B.C.—I’ve watched the growth of privacy’s regulatory/industrial complex and seen its strategy in action: scare, then sell. Yesterday, before I spoke at the Reboot conference, the privacy commissioner for the province, Elizabeth Denham, got up to demonize the social net and its leaders. She said that Google’s Eric Schmidt believes privacy is not relevant anymore, citing his jokes about changing our names at age 21. She belittled Mark Zuckerberg, too. She bragged about helping to bring Facebook to accounts when she was in the federal privacy office.
Would You Trust the Government to Control Your Online Identity?
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