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Google Accused of Abusive Conduct in Privacy App Case

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An award-winning company founded by former Google engineers is taking legal action against the search engine giant over claims it has engaged in a “pattern of abusive behavior” and is violating privacy rights on a “massive scale.”

Disconnect, a U.S. firm that designs privacy-enhancing technology, has filed a complaint with European antitrust regulators after its Android app was banned from the Google Play Store. The app was designed to protect smartphone users from invisible tracking and malware distributed through online advertisements.

The complaint was submitted earlier this month, but the full allegations were not made public at the time. The Intercept has obtained a copy of the 104-page complaint, which attacks Google over its claimed commitment to privacy and accuses the tech titan of trying to stop people from using the Disconnect app because it poses an “existential threat” to its revenue sources.

Google’s business, the complaint claims, “consists almost entirely of gathering data about the preferences, locations, and behavior of ordinary people and monetizing that data through the sale of targeted advertisements on the Internet.” Because of this, it alleges, Google is “using the full weight of its market power to deny users control over tracking, particularly mobile tracking.”

When you visit a website, usually unbeknown to you, other websites and services try to connect to your device in the background to collect data about your browsing habits. The Disconnect app allows users to view and block these invisible network connections, which the company says “permit intrusions into the personal privacy of users by facilitating tracking and the collection of personal information” and “expose users to risks associated with malware and other forms of cybercrime.” However, some of these same invisible connections are used to generate advertising revenue, an issue that appears to be at the root of Google’s decision to crack down on Disconnect. (Read more from “Google Accused of Abusive Conduct in Privacy App Case” HERE)

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Why Google Is the New Evil Empire [+video]

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Photo Credit: Fox Business

Photo Credit: Fox Business

By Steve Tobak. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there was a Galactic Empire, a beady-eyed Emperor and his heavy-breathing sidekick, Darth Vader. Ever since, we’ve identified the corporate villains we love to hate. We had AT&T (T) in the 70s, IBM (IBM) in the 80s, and the evil empire of the 90s was of course Microsoft (MSFT)and Bill “The Conqueror” Gates.

Today we have Google (GOOGL). Don’t let the geeky façade, whimsical multicolored logo and “don’t be evil” mantra fool you. Google may very well be the most sinister threat and wicked incarnation of them all.

In an interview with the Atlantic almost five years ago, the search empire’s dark lord himself, Eric Schmidt, said, “Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.” He said, “I would argue that implanting things in your brain is beyond the creepy line – at least for the moment until the technology gets better.”

Then things got even creepier when Schmidt said, “We don’t need you to type at all because we know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less guess what you’re thinking about.” Then he paused and asked, “Is that over the line?”

Clearly, this creepy virtual line of Google’s is not just a moving target but a highly subjective one. How do they know when they’ve crossed it? Perhaps the more appropriate question to ask is how many lines does Google have to cross before its executives realize – before we realize – that they’re doing evil? (Read more from “Why Google Is the New Evil Empire” HERE)

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Google Will Let You See Everything You’ve Ever Searched

By Julian Hattem. Google is famous for keeping discreet tabs on how people browse the Internet in order to market ads back to them and point them toward the websites, videos and services they want.

Now, it’s possible for the average Web user to get a slice of some of that information.

Over the weekend, an unofficial Google blog highlighted a new feature that the Internet giant had quietly rolled out to let people download their entire Google search histories.

To find everything they’ve ever searched for, users should go to Google Web History, click the gear icon and click “Download.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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Google Lobbying Spending Reached New High in Early 2015

By Diane Bartz. Google Inc , already one of Washington’s biggest spenders, set a company record for its lobbying activity in the first quarter of 2015 when it spent $5.5 million, according to a government database.

Google ranked ninth in terms of total lobbying spending in 2014 at $16.8 million, behind the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($124 million) and the National Association of Realtors ($55 million), according to the Center for Responsive Politics . . .

The $5.5 million Google spent in the first three months of 2015 is the most since the company began lobbying in 2007, according to the government database. Its ranking for this quarter’s spending could not be immediately determined.

Google’s growing investment in lobbying highlights the tech firm’s expanding presence in Washington as it fights antitrust battles at home and abroad, and grows its business into new areas such as broadband connectivity and self-driving cars. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Europe to Pull Trigger on Google Antitrust Charges

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Photo Credit: The Wall Street Journal

Photo Credit: The Wall Street Journal

Europe’s antitrust regulator plans to file formal charges against Google Inc. for violating antitrust laws, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday, stepping up a five-year investigation likely to become the biggest competition battle here since the European Union’s pursuit of Microsoft Corp. a decade ago.

EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager made the decision Tuesday in agreement with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, this person said. She is expected to inform her fellow EU commissioners at a meeting Wednesday, said three EU officials.

The European charges will focus on complaints that Google uses its dominant Internet search engine to favor its own services over those of rivals, people familiar with the situation said. Rivals say Google search results in areas like travel, shopping and maps increasingly favor Google’s own offerings, rather than links to similaronline services run by rivals.

Google told employees Tuesday it has a “very strong case” against the expected charges. In the past, Google has denied breaking antitrust laws and argues that providing more direct answers to online queries, including from its own services, benefits consumers.

The charges would be “very bad news” for Google, said Ioannis Lianos, a professor of global competition law at University College London. (Read more from “Europe to Pull Trigger on Google Antitrust Charges” HERE)

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Google Controls What We Buy, the News We Read — and Obama’s Policies

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The New Digital Age - 2014 SXSW Music, Film + Interactive FestivalIt’s 2020. The New England Patriots, winners of six straight Super Bowls, are having yet another routine meeting with the Commissioner’s Office.

Deputy NFL Commissioner Tom Brady and his chief of staff, Rob Gronkowski, OK a rule change that forgives the Patriots for illegally taping other teams and deflating football over the preceding years. Meanwhile, members of the Patriots continue to happily contribute funding for the commissioner’s new 45-room castle in Turks and Caicos, and Bill Belichick agrees to continue coaching the commissioner’s 12-year-old son in Pop Warner football.

Would that bother anyone? Because the above is pretty much going on today, only the team is called Google and the commissioner is the president of the United States.

Sure, since we’re talking about politics, the giving and taking of favors works in a slightly more indirect way. But only slightly. As Michael Kinsley used to say, the scandal about corruption in Washington is not the stuff that’s illegal but the stuff that’s legal.

A former Google officer is the president’s chief technology adviser. Google employees contributed more to President Obama’s re-election than did employees of any other company except Microsoft. Google lobbyists met with Obama White House officials 230 times. By comparison, lobbyists from rival Comcast have been admitted to the inner sanctum a mere 20 or so times in the same period. (Read more from “Google Controls What We Buy, the News We Read — and Obama’s Policies” HERE)

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Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid Of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook And Google

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Photo Credit: TechCrunchAccording to Edward Snowden, people who care about their privacy should stay away from popular consumer Internet services like Dropbox, Facebook, and Google.

Snowden conducted a remote interview today as part of the New Yorker Festival, where he was asked a couple of variants on the question of what we can do to protect our privacy.

His first answer called for a reform of government policies. Some people take the position that they “don’t have anything to hide,” but he argued that when you say that, “You’re inverting the model of responsibility for how rights work”:

When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights.

He added that on an individual level, people should seek out encrypted tools and stop using services that are “hostile to privacy.” For one thing, he said you should “get rid of Dropbox,” because it doesn’t support encryption, and you should consider alternatives like SpiderOak. (Snowden made similar comments over the summer, with Dropbox responding that protecting users’ information is “a top priority.”)

Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Law Enforcement Seeks to Halt Apple-Google Encryption of Mobile Data

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Photo Credit: Politico U.S. law enforcement officials are urging Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG) to give authorities access to smartphone data that the companies have decided to block, and are weighing whether to appeal to executives or seek congressional legislation.

The new privacy features, announced two weeks ago by the California-based companies, will stymie investigations into crimes ranging from drug dealing to terrorism, law enforcement officials said.

“This is a very bad idea,” said Cathy Lanier, chief of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, in an interview. Smartphone communication is “going to be the preferred method of the pedophile and the criminal. We are going to lose a lot of investigative opportunities.”

The dispute is the latest flare-up that pits the federal government against the nation’s leading technology companies since National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden disclosed last year the extent of U.S. snooping on phone and Internet communications — and how companies cooperated.

U.S. Justice Department and FBI officials are trying to understand how the new Apple and Google Android systems work and how the companies could change the encryption to make it accessible when court ordered. Their requests to the companies may include letters, personal appeals or congressional legislation, said a federal law official who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.

Read more from this story HERE.

EU to Google: Improve Antitrust Settlement or Face Charges

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Photo Credit: GettyThe European Union on Tuesday told Google it must strengthen its proposal to settle antitrust concerns or it will face formal charges from the commission.

In February, Google reached a tentative settlement with European regulators after a now 4-year-old investigation into allegedly favoring its own products and services over those of competitors in search results. As part of the settlement, Google agreed to display search results for its own services in the same way as those for rival companies, but did not have to pay a fine.

But Google’s settlement proposal has come under fire after widespread criticism and complaints, including from European politicians, competitors like Microsoft, and French and German publishers. On Tuesday, EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said the commission was swayed by “fresh evidence” and “solid arguments” from twenty formal complaints.

Read more from this story HERE.

Google Privacy Law ‘Means Total Rethink of Basic Freedoms’

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Photo Credit: dannysullivanHundreds of millions of people across Europe will be forced to change completely the way they use the internet, according to one of Google’s key advisers.

The era of freely available information is now over in Europe, warns Professor Luciano Floridi, who has been appointed by the £225bn search engine firm to find out how it should comply with a landmark ruling that allows people to ask for personal information to be taken down.

His warning comes as The Independent reveals that 12,000 requests were made on Friday, around 20 a minute, from people across Europe demanding to have their personal details removed from Google. More than 1,500 of these are believed to have come from people in the UK who were looking to take advantage of a service launched by Google to make it easier for people to apply for personal data to be removed.

The move follows a European court’s ruling earlier this month that gave people the “right to be forgotten”; convicted criminals are among those trying to hide links to stories from online search engines. An ex-MP who is seeking re-election is another of the thousands who have approached Google.

Read more from this story HERE.

EU Court Says Google Must Delete ‘Irrelevant’ Links at the Request of Ordinary Individuals

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Photo Credit: Getty

Photo Credit: Getty

By The Independent.

The European Court of Justice struck a major blow against the right of internet companies to hold unlimited information on individuals when it ordered Google to remove links that are deemed “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant”.

The court’s decision will allow individuals the right to ask internet search engines to remove links to information about them that they do not want known – which could be seen either as an assertion of the right to privacy or an attack on free speech. Google and free speech activists reacted angrily to the court’s verdict which could guarantee individuals a “right to be forgotten” on the internet which is not currently available.

It is unclear exactly how the ruling will be implemented considering the sheer volume of online data and internet users. For individuals keen to erase embarrassing incidents from their past, it could prove a handy tool for re-shaping their digital footprint, while data protection advocates are calling it a victory against the all-powerful internet giants.

But for champions of free speech, the potential for misuse is deeply worrying.

“This is akin to marching into a library and forcing it to pulp books,” said Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of Index on Censorship. “Although the ruling is intended for private individuals, it opens the door to anyone who wants to whitewash their personal history.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Europe’s top court: people have right to be forgotten on Internet

By Reuters.

People can ask Google to delete sensitive information from its Internet search results, Europe’s top court said on Tuesday.

The case underlines the battle between advocates of free expression and supporters of privacy rights, who say people should have the “right to be forgotten” meaning that they should be able to remove their digital traces from the Internet.

The ruling by the Luxembourg-based European Union Court of Justice (ECJ) came after a Spanish man complained to the Spanish data protection agency that an auction notice of his repossessed home on Google’s search results infringed his privacy.

Read more from this story HERE.

Spyware App Turns the Privacy Tables on Google Glass Wearers

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Photo Credit: Naked SecurityCritics of Google Glass usually remark on how the device allows its owner to take photos and videos of other people without their knowledge or consent, which has contributed to some backlash, including bans on Glass in some establishments and an alleged assault on a Glass user.

But a spyware app developed by two researchers has shown that Google Glass can be used to secretly take photos of whatever a Glass wearer is looking at without their knowledge – making the Glass user the one whose privacy and security is potentially compromised.

The lens display usually lights up whenever Glass is in use, which is the only way to tell when Glass is on – other than witnessing voice and gesture commands used by the wearer such as “Okay Glass, take a photo.”

However, according to media reports, the app takes a photo every 10 seconds when the display is off, meaning the wearer (or anyone in view of the camera) is unaware that it’s recording.

The app can also access the internet from the user’s Glass connection to upload the images to a server.

Read more from this story HERE.