When it turned out software created by Carrier IQ was spying on customers and sending that information to wireless carriers, there was broad outrage by news and blog sites across the Internet. Now, three top lawmakers have called for Congressional hearings on the data transmission actions of Carrier IQ and similar products. (See the open letter [...]
Google announced it will soon start offering one-day shipping for merchants it works with on online commerce. This is framed as competing with Amazon, but the stories about the move make clear that the goal is not so much to make money from the commerce sales — Amazon’s business — but from advertising, thereby entrenching [...]
There’s a lot of publicity on how ‘Carrier IQ’ software on Android phones are tracking user keystrokes, but a new report says the problem of security on Android phones is much broader: Researchers at North Carolina State University have uncovered a variety of vulnerabilities in the standard configurations of popular Android smartphones from Motorola, HTC, [...]
There can be an annoying aspect of debates on user privacy and data where every time important data is shared by companies like Google, they claim it was an accident (see Wi-Spy) or even what users wanted. However, you have to wonder about a new analysis of Privacy On Google+ highlighted in MIT’s Technology Review [...]
So Google has finally agreed to allow users to remove their wi-fi location from Google’s database of wi-fi locations created by its Street View snooping vehicles. All you have to do is log into your WiFi access point and change your SSID by adding “_nomap” to it. Now, for those who don’t know how to [...]
Jeff Gould at Seeking Alpha details some of the failures of Google’s attempt to enter the enterprise services field with its Google Apps product, focusing in particular on the delays and failures of the company’s contract with the City of Los Angeles. Heralded by Google as the opening shot in the broader use of its [...]
That’s the comment of Forbes contributor Eric Jackson, who marveled at Google Chairman Eric Schmidt’s attempt to whitewash the animosity of Steve Jobs and Google over the latter’s launching of Android. After Jobs died, Schmidt was all over the media claiming he and Jobs remained friends and even attended private dinners together. Well, Walter Isaacson’s [...]
Noting (as I did on Monday) that Schmidt had basically recanted his contrite testimony before Congress in basically calling the government slow and stupid in a Washington Post interview, Consumer Watchdog said in a letter to Senate chairman Herb Kohl that Schmidt should be recalled to testify by the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee: “It’s rare that [...]
Back in July, I wrote a series, The Cost of Lost Privacy: How Google and Datamining Drive Economic Inequality in Our Nation, about how advertisers are increasingly able to use demographic and behavioral activity by users to target ads at specific vulnerable groups. With Google’s Chairman Eric Schmidt testifying before the Senate on Wednesday, I’m [...]
Seeking to defuse a fight with European privacy regulators, Google has announced that owners of residential wi-fi routers around the world will be able to delete their devices from an online database used by Google to locate cellphone locations. As always, some people will no doubt be surprised that such information was being posted without [...]
