GOOGLE DELETES DATA COLLECTED BY STREET VIEW CARS

Personal data collected by Google’s UK Street View cars has been deleted. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which has been criticised for not taking a more hardline stance against Google, confirmed the deletion.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/WpjSL (Source: BBC News)

WOMAN SUES GOOGLE FOR SHOWING UNDERWEAR

A Japanese woman is suing Google for displaying images of underwear hanging on her washing line on its Street View function. The woman, who has not been named, is suing the Internet giant for 600,000 Yen, claiming the images caused her psychological distress, according to Japan’s Mainichi newspaper.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/n46qk (Source: The Telegraph)

SMARTPHONES SHARING PERSONAL DATA, PROBE FINDS

Few devices know more personal details about people than the smartphones in their pockets: phone numbers, current location, often the owner’s real name — even a unique ID number that can never be changed or turned off. These phones don’t keep secrets. They are sharing this personal data widely and regularly, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/hI0z6 (Source: The Wall Street Journal)

DATA BREACH EXPOSES McDONALD'S CUSTOMERS' INFO

McDonald’s Corp. says some of its customers’ private information was exposed during a data breach. The company said Monday that a third party was able to get past security measures and see into a database of its customer information that included e-mail, phone numbers, addresses, birthdates and other specifics that they provided when signing up for online promotions or other subscriptions to its websites.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/XZ6JX (Source: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

FTC ENDORSES "DO NOT TRACK" PRIVACY PLAN ONLINE

The Federal Trade Commission advocated a plan that lets consumers on the Internet choose whether they want information about their browsing habits to be collected, an option known as “do not track.” The FTC’s proposal, a framework for commercial use of consumer data, would make consumer privacy the default position and would let Web users decide whether Internet sites and advertisers can build profiles of their browsing and buying habits as well as collect other personal information.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/AqS0J (Source: The New York Times)

HACKER CLAIMS ATTACK ON WIKILEAKS WEBSITE

A computer hacker who calls himself “The Jester” claimed responsibility for the cyber attack which took down the WikiLeaks site, shortly before it started posting hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables. The Jester, who describes himself as a “hacktivist for good,” said he took the controversial site down “for attempting to endanger the lives of our troops, ‘other assets’ & foreign relations.”

Read the article: http://goo.gl/mfMlA (Source: CNN)

U.K ENDS GOOGLE STREET VIEW PROBE AS DATA DELETED

The UK’s information commissioner has said that wi-fi data accidentally collected by Google’s Street View cars will be deleted “as soon as possible.” Deputy information commissioner David Smith told the BBC that there would be no further enquiries into the matter.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/o7VHb (Source: BBC News)

EU LAW ON INTERNET TRACKING FACES OBSTACLES

Europe’s effort to regulate online “cookies” is crumbling, exposing how tough it is to curb the practice of tracking Internet users’ movements on the Web. Seeking to be a leader in protecting online privacy, the European Union last year passed a law requiring companies to obtain consent from Web users when tracking files such as cookies are placed on users’ computers, but Internet companies, advertisers, lawmakers, privacy advocates and EU member nations can’t agree on the law’s meaning.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/9icvA (Source: The Wall Street Journal)

CHINESE WOMAN GETS 1- YEAR SENTENCE FOR TWEET

A Chinese woman was sentenced to one year in a labor camp after she forwarded a satirical microblog message that urged recipients to attack the Japanese pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo, human rights groupsTwitter said. The woman, Cheng Jianping, 46, was accused of “disturbing social order” for resending a message from her fiancé that mocked young nationalists who held anti-Japanese rallies in several cities last month.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/1lsXD (Source: The New York Times)

DEFENSE SECRETARY WARNS OF "HUGE" CYBER THREAT

The United States faces a major threat in the future from cyber technologies that will require civil-military coordination to shield networks from attack, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said. “I think there is a huge future threat. And there is a considerable current threat,” Gates told The Wall Street Journal CEO Council.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/jV1J8 (Source: Reuters)

PRIVACY QUESTIONS RAISED ABOUT FACEBOOK MESSAGING

After Facebook’s struggle with one privacy issue after another this year, some in the industry are raising privacy questions about Facebook’s new messaging system. As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained the new system at a press conference, he never touched on how the company plans on keeping users’ messages private and secure.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/3s6SZ (Source: Computerworld)

POPE BENEDICT'S VIEW OF THE INTERNET RISK

Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday warned that the Internet does not make people more humane but instead risks increasing a "sense of solitude and disorientation" among "numbed" young people.

"A large number of young people... establish forms of communication that to do not increase humaneness but instead risk increasing a sense of solitude and disorientation," Benedict told a Vatican conference on culture.

Read the article

MY NEW BOOK

For more info please CLICK HERE

WHITE HOUSE TO PUSH FOR INTERNET PRIVACY LAWS

The Obama Administration is preparing a stepped-up approach to policing Internet privacy that calls for new laws and the creation of a new position to oversee the effort, according to people familiar with the situation. The strategy is expected to be unveiled in a report being issued by the U.S. Commerce Department in coming weeks, these people said.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/rTQQw (Source: The Wall Street Journal)

COMPANY ACCUSED OF ILLEGAL FIRING FOR FACEBOOK POST

In what labor officials and lawyers view as a ground-breaking case involving workers and social media, the National Labor Relations Board has accused a company of illegally firing an employee after she criticized her supervisor on her Facebook page. This is the first case in which the labor board has stepped in to argue that workers’ criticisms of their bosses or companies on a social networking site are generally a protected activity and that employers would be violating the law by punishing workers for such statements.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/hyPXK (Source: The New York Times)

BRITISH OFFICIALS SAY GOOGLE BREACHED PRIVACY LAWS

British data protection officials said that Google had committed a “significant breach” of privacy laws when its Street View mapping service gathered e-mail messages, computer passwords and other personal information without the owners’ knowledge. Yet Google managed to avoid a fine, with the Information Commissioner’s Office accepting a promise from the company that it would take steps to avoid repeating what it has described as an inadvertent error.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/DrCao (Source: The New York Times)

JUDGE APPROVES $8.5 MILLION GOOGLE BUZZ PRIVACY SETTLEMENT

Google said that a settlement for a class action suit by Gmail users over privacy violations related to Google Buzz has been granted preliminary approval by a federal district court judge. The settlement, proposed in September, calls for Google to pay $8.5 million toward a fund for organizations focusing on Internet privacy policy or education.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/1PinD (Source: ZDNet)

BRITISH OFFICIALS REOPEN PROBE OF GOOGLE STREET VIEW

British officials said that they would re-open an investigation into Wi-Fi data collected by Google’s Street View cars after the search engine giant admitted that it captured entire e-mails, URLs, and passwords. “We will be making enquires to see whether this information relates to the data inadvertently captured in the U.K., before deciding on the necessary course of action, including a consideration of the need to use our enforcement powers,” the Information Commissioner’s Office said in a statement.

Read the article: http://goo.gl/YFKwW (Source: PC Magazine)

PENTAGON CONSIDERS PREEMPTIVE CYBERSECURITY STRIKES

The Pentagon is contemplating an aggressive approach to defending its computer systems that includes preemptive actions such as knocking out parts of an adversary’s computer network overseas — but it is still wrestling with how to pursue the strategy legally.

Read the article: http://gigalaw.com/2010/08/30/pentagon-considers-preemptive-cybersecurity-strikes/ (Source: The Washington Post)

DIFFERING VIEWS ON STREET VIEW

BY ABU BAKAR MUNIR

After an investigation that has spanned almost two months, the Australian Privacy Commissioner, last month, concluded that the collection and storing of unsecured WiFi payload data using Street View vehicles in Australia by Google has breached the Privacy Act. The Privacy Commissioner said, "On the information available I am satisfied that any collection of personal information would have breach the Australian Privacy Act. Collecting personal information in these circumstances is a very serious matter. Australians should reasonably expect that private communications remain private".

In response to the investigation, Google has provided the Privacy Commissioner with several written undertaking and published an apology. The undertakings are:

1. Undertake to conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) on any Street View data collection activities in Australia that include personal information.
2. Provide a copy of these PIAs to the Commissioner Office.
3. Regularly consult with the Australian Privacy Commissioner about personal data collection activities arising from significant product launches in Australia.

Google's apology states, "In May, we announced that we had also mistakenly collecting publicly broadcast payload data. To be clear, we did not want and have never used any payload data in our products or services - and as soon as we discovered our error , we announced that we would stop collecting all WiFi data via our Street View vehicles...We want to reiterate to Australians that this was a mistake for which we are sincerely sorry. Maintaining people's trust is crucial to everything we do and we have earn that trust every single day. We are acutely aware that we failed badly here."

In the U.K, however, Google was cleared. The Information Commissioner Office (ICO) on 29 July 2010 stated, "The ICO has visited Google's premises to assess samples of the payload data it inadvertently collected. ..The information we saw does not include meaningful personal details that could linked to an identifiable person."

The ICO qualifies this statement by saying that "As we have only seen samples of the records collected in the U.K we recognise that other data protection authorities conducting a detailed analysis of all payload data collected in their jurisdictions may nevertheless find samples of information which can be linked to identifiable individuals." The ICO concludes that, "on the basis of the samples we saw we are satisfied that so far that it is unlikely that Google will have captured significant amounts of personal data."

U.K SAYS GOOGLE DIDN'T COLLECT "SIGNIFICANT" DATA

Google did not grab “significant” personal details when collecting data from wi-fi networks, according to the UK’s Information Commissioner Office. The finding came after the body reviewed some of the data Google scooped up from unsecured networks.

Read the article: http://gigalaw.com/2010/07/30/u-k-says-google-didnt-collect-significant-data/ (Source: BBC News)

DATA ON 100 MILLION FACEBOOK USERS EXPOSED

A security researcher released a file containing the names, profile addresses and unique identification numbers of more than 100 million Facebook users. The information was corralled via a public directory Facebook makes available that lists users who are sharing at least some of their profile information with everyone on the Internet.

Read the article: http://gigalaw.com/2010/07/28/data-on-100-million-facebook-users-exposed/ (Source: The New York Times)

SENATORS PRESS GOOGLE, APPLE, FACEBOOK ON PRIVACY

After a string of online privacy problems this year, legislators grilled Google Inc., Apple Inc., Facebook and AT&T Inc., seeking assurance that user information will be protected in the future. Senators questioned whether new legislation is needed to protect people’s personal information online during a hearing held by the Senate Commerce Committee.

Read the article: http://gigalaw.com/2010/07/28/senators-press-google-apple-facebook-on-privacy/ (Source: Los Angeles Times)

FTC OFFICIAL CITES "CHALLENGES" IN PROTECTING TEENS ONLINE

The agency responsible for protecting consumers in the U.S. says defending the interests of teenagers in the online world presents “unique challenges.” The deputy director of consumer protection at the Federal Trade Commission laid out some of those challenges in testimony before a U.S. Congress subcommittee on consumer protection.

Read the article: http://gigalaw.com/2010/07/18/ftc-official-cites-challenges-in-protecting-teens-online/ (Source: CBC News)

GOOGLE "STREET VIEW" ILLEGAL, AUSTRALIAN OFFICIAL SAYS

Google broke Australia’s privacy law when it collected private information from wireless networks, the country’s privacy commissioner said, following an investigation into the Internet giant’s “Street View” mapping service. Several other countries are investigating Google over the data collection, and there are growing concerns from regulators and consumer watchdogs worldwide that Google isn’t serious enough about people’s privacy — a charge the company denies.

Read the article: http://gigalaw.com/2010/07/13/google-street-view-illegal-australian-official-says/ (Source: MyBroadband)

LAW FIRM WORKING ON CLASS-ACTION FACEBOOK PRIVACY CASE

A Toronto-based law firm with a history of targeting litigation at corporations as varied as chocolate companies and silicone breast implant manufacturers has a new company in the crosshairs: Facebook. Merchant Law Group, which has offices in 10 Canadian cities, launched litigation seeking class action status against the massive social-networking site, alleging the mishandling of sensitive user data — the latest development in a resurgence of action against the social network’s privacy policies, after it looked for a while as if all the fuss had calmed down.

Read the article: http://gigalaw.com/2010/07/08/law-firm-working-on-class-action-facebook-privacy-case/ (Source: CNET News)

GERMANY OPENS FORMAL PROBE OF FACEBOOK'S PRIVACY

Data protection officials in Germany announced the launch of a formal investigation into Facebook, saying they believe some of its much-maligned privacy policies are illegal. It’s given Facebook until August 11 to respond formally.

Read the article: http://gigalaw.com/2010/07/07/germany-opens-formal-probe-of-facebooks-privacy/ (Source: CNET News)

SENATORS URGE OBAMA TO SUPPORT CYBERSECURITY BILL

Seven Senate leaders urged President Obama to support planned legislation designed to protect critical information technology systems from attacks. In a letter to Obama, the senators said they plan to produce a comprehensive cybersecurity bill, although they did not specify a timeframe.

Read the article: http://gigalaw.com/2010/07/05/senators-urge-obama-to-support-cybersecurity-bill/ (Source: National Journal)

LEADER OF .XXX DOMAIN SAYS IT WILL BE "VERY SUCCESSFUL"

The Internet has made Stuart Lawley a wealthy man. Now he’s poised to make his next fortune selling Internet addresses to pornographers.

Read the article: http://gigalaw.com/2010/07/03/leader-of-xxx-domain-says-it-will-be-very-successful/ (Source: Bloomberg Businessweek)