Tweet According to a recent settlement, in addition to images of the world’s roads and buildings, Google’s special Street View vehicles may have also collected personal information from users on unencrypted business and personal wireless networks.
Tag Archive: Privacy
Feb 13
FTC Sanctions Ad Network for History Sniffing
Tweet In December, an FTC order barred Epic Marketplace, Inc. from continuing a practice known as history sniffing. The technology employed by the company allowed them to track sensitive information including certain medical and financial information for millions of consumers. According to the terms of the settlement, the company must cease those practices and destroy …
Feb 13
Court Invalidates Zappos’ Browsewrap Agreement
Tweet In early 2012, Zappos, a division of Amazon, was the victim of an enormous customer data breach affecting 24 million records. Class action attorneys filed cases against the online shoe retailer citing multiple breaches of contract and privacy violations. Zappos’ Terms of Use (TOU) contained an arbitration provision, which may have saved the company …
Jan 14
California Releases New Mobile App Privacy Recommendations
Tweet California’s Attorney General recently released a set of official privacy recommendations for consideration by mobile app developers, mobile ad networks and related industry players. The recommendations, published in a report entitled, “Privacy on the Go: Recommendations for the Mobile Ecosystem,” include development and disclosure recommendations that encourage participants in the mobile app ecosystem to …
Jan 10
New Cases Clarify the Stored Communications Act
Tweet How much privacy protection are your stored emails and texts hosted by third parties, such as Hotmail or Yahoo, entitled to? In the United States, the privacy of such communications is governed by a federal statute called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“ECPA”) and, in particular, a subsection of the ECPA called the Stored …
Jan 03
Privacy Class Action Suit Against Google Dismissed
Tweet In early 2012, Google created a stir by rolling out a new privacy policy that covers many of its products. It was widely noted at the time – in the media, the blogosphere, and by Google itself– that the new policy permitted Google to combine the data it had collected from users of its various …
Dec 17
Google Sued for Scanning Emails Sent to Gmail Accounts
Tweet For years, it has been widely acknowledged that Google, Inc. (“Google”) scans incoming and outgoing e-mails associated with individual Gmail accounts in order to deliver targeted advertising to Gmail account holders. While Gmail subscribers may have consented to e-mail scanning when they signed up for Google’s services, many non-subscribers that have sent e-mails to Gmail …
Nov 30
U.S. District Court Approves $22.5 Million Dollar Settlement Between FTC and Google
Tweet On November 16, 2012, the District Court for the Northern District of California issued an order approving a proposed settlement between the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and Google, Inc. (“Google”). The settlement represents the largest fine for violation of a consent order in FTC history, according to a statement by the FTC.
Nov 05
FTC Recommends Best Practices For Using Facial Recognition Technology
Tweet In an effort to stay ahead of the technology curve, the Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) recently issued a staff report on advertisers’ use of facial recognition technology (“FRT”).
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