Market Currents
Google (GOOG) looks like it will again get away with breaches of privacy - in the U.S. at least...
-
Sunday, March 10, 4:47 AM ETGoogle (GOOG) looks like it will again get away with breaches of privacy - in the U.S. at least - with the company reportedly nearing an agreement with over 30 states to pay just $7M to settle allegations that it improperly collected personal information over a three-year period when mapping its Street View service. A deal could be announced this week.
Other date
TECH ETFs IN FOCUS
Latest Tech Articles
This news story has 14 comments:
My understanding, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that to a large extent the breaches stem from Google collecting information about the location of private wifi access points in order to assist its location based services provide a higher degree of accuracy in determining one's geographic location.
I'm sure that geographic location mining is a bad thing to some extent without consent, but a simple foray into social media websites these days reveals people are happy to sign away a lot more of their privacy than google ever 'breached'.
Did google do a "Bad Thing"? Well yes, but they subsequently deleted the information retrieved and without updating it it rapidly gets out of date anyway. So for the most part, "ho hum" and $7m I'm ok with it.
-certain data was collected from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks.
and
-street view cameras taking pictures of private property
Again, I fail to see how amazingly damaging these issues can possibly be except in the imaginations of the persons supposedly harmed by same.
Another good reason for the amount is the relative inability of parties concerned to come up with numbers that reflect higher costs for the damages supposedly suffered.
Feel free to elucidate us all if you have a different opinion.
I should further point out that google has rectified the situation by deleting whatever data was captured, and that the data itself is rather old.
I also subscribe to the notion of personal responsibility. I don't think any entity anywhere should be responsible for protecting you from yourself. If you are committing 'indecent acts' in a manner which exposes you to capture from Google, well, so be it.
At the end of the day, placing a dollar value on whatever inappropriate data somehow managed to get captured by Google is the most relevant issue, and like I previously stated, it's both difficult to come up with real numbers representing real damages, or for that matter compensate the harmed folks.
1. There is nothing "old" about your email content, nor your bank card, nor your credit card.
2. There is no guarantee that Google actually successfully deleted the data:
a) Google the company may not actually use that data, but can it guarantee none of its employees have another copy of the data, or view it?
b) Is there any other copy of the data around? In the local office? In back-up tape? Are there any other copies lying around in other network servers while the data was transferred from the fields to the head-office?
And regarding self-protection, have you ever used public WIFI? Starbucks? Airports?
As stated, there is no point of continuing this discussion. The constitutions evidently take personal privacy very seriously. If one doesn't care so much about his own privacy, that's within his rights. It doesn't mean his personal views are appropriate for his fellow citizens.
Why did they take ANY data from such for any reason?
I avoid anything from Google at all cost--they know waaaaaayyyyy too much about you and me and everybody just thru search.
They say "don't be evil" and yet this happens!
Kmi, I almost suspect you work for Google when you trivialize such privacy breaches.
Seriously, quantify for me if you will in dollars what Street View capturing you sunbathing nude cost you? Or for that matter quantify for me what it may cost someone to have had their bank account password lifted off the unprotected wifi years ago, without that data ever having resulted in any identity theft issues, and with that password now having likely been changed multiple times?
Can you quantify what the "damages" should be for old data still lingering in some corner of the internet when the average user chooses to willfully provide far more over social sites like Facebook?
The fact is, it's hard to quantify in dollars and cents, and the market current as above written overestimates the "damage" incurred in anything but the most abstract and theoretical "privacy concerns".
It's old data of no real value to anyone and deleted for that matter. So, yes, I <shrug>.
How do you know it is "old" data??
My social security number has not changed. My tax returns with income levels and sources of dividend income and charitable organizations that I gave to for 2009 are not necessarily "old".
Any medical records or correspondence with physicians and hospitals may not be "old" either.
Without knowing what the information was--and I don't think that the AGs of the states that sued should know what the info was either--you can not know what the value might be to the real owner of the data or to Google.
Google is the most dangerous organization on the planet right now. If people willfully give their personal info out on Facebook, that is their choice. Google takes the info surreptitiously--that sure seems "evil" to me.
Did you think they would get smacked by an administration who clearly endorses Google and its practices?
My response to hypocrites like Buffett / Google / Facebook and any other "Tax them / enforce rules for them, but NOT for me" is quite simple!
Do NOT SUPPORT them!
Period!
Use a different search engine,
shun Facebook and leave Buffett to his own Greed and Dishonesty!
As mom once said,
If Little Barry jumps off a bridge,
or you going to follow him?
Life is simple folks, just take back your life and leave the rich and famous to wallow in their own progressive misery!
Don't forget,
they know better than you,
you are to stupid to know when you have had enough soda with your pizza!
Lord have mercy!