Neither a candle for an angel nor a poker for the devil
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Canada launches legal probe into Google
A CANADIAN GOVERNMENT privacy watchdog has launched a probe of Google after the Internet outfit admitted it collected private data while taking photographs for its Street View feature of Google Earth.
Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart told Reuters that she is concerned about the privacy implications stemming from the collection of data from wireless networks in Canada, the US and other countries.
She said she has a number of questions about how this collection could have happened and believes that a formal investigation is the best way to find out. Canada is a bit behind the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and European Commission in launching a formal investigation.
Recently the FTC and other governments have asked Google to hang onto the data for now.
Google said it would cooperate with authorities to answer their questions and address their concerns, it does not think it did anything wrong.
Meanwhile lawsuits have been filed in Washington, California, Massachusetts and Oregon by people who accuse Google of violating their privacy by collecting data from open WiFi networks.
A district court judge in Portland, Oregon, has ordered Google to make two copies of a hard drive containing data it collected in the US and turn them over to the court. µ
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While I'm all for privacy and not being evil, I've got to wonder, when I turn on my wifi, and it shows the networks available(they are all security-enabled near me), am I doing something wrong???
If you've got sensitive data on an unsecured network, google is the lest of your worries... Information age Darwinism will catch you in the end.
The privacy of those who want to display
their nudity is compromised.
It looks like it happened twice. Once
by those who displayed their nudity and
the other time by google.
Seems like if the first didn't happen, the second occurence could not take place.
How many of the "there's no problem with google doing this" commenters are on the google payroll? No? I suppose they're all blythely entering personal info onto Facebook too. Why DID google gather that info again? "Just for the helluvit". Yeah, I thought so.
Well, the hope is that gov'ts will use it in court against go_ogle. Be interesting to find out exactly what they have. As I said elsewhere, gov'ts see go_ogle for what it is: a SPY AGENCY. That's why outside the US there's a bit more interest in pursuing this investigation. Regarding go_ogle as spies also makes a more likely explanation for go_ogle "leaving" China than does a corporate concern for freedom.
Isn't it great how the tools in governments around the globe are jumping on the band wagon and launching investigations into Google's illegal collecting of private data? Notice how they have all, without exception, demanded copies of the data collected in there quest to protect their citizens. They want copies for themselves and insist on their right to have those copies of data that they would not dare to admit to collecting themselves, but feel justified in demanding the data from Google. They all want more copies made, and no government is demanding that the data be destroyed. How is another copy of my information being made available to any government protecting my privacy? It is not protecting anyone. It is governments partnering with Google to collect data neither has any right to collect or keep. Replace your WIFI and don't use the recommended, government approved settings. Password protect every piece of equipment in your systems and use some other purveyor of porn when searching on the net. Remove any Google garbage from your systems and let the governments try to collect their own files on you some legal way. Block everything with any reference to Google in it and let the American CIA find another method of spying on all non-US citizens. Write your local crooked politicians and demand that Google be banned from your country's networks. They have the rights of citizens in American courts so why not give them that right here, and just ban the company for life. We can ban people from using the net and there is no legal reason for not banning Google now.
Once again the lawyers are having a go at something they don't understand. Google hasn't collected anything that wifi owners aren't broadcasting in public! Isn't it the same as collecting house numbers??
Should Google be collecting wifi details? Probably not. But that doesn't mean there's anything illegal about doing so.