Google faces WHOPPING FTC fine for Safari privacy gaffe Google is reportedly going to be slapped with a bigger regulatory fine than the meagre one handed down to it from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) late last week. According to Mercury News, which cites anonymous sources familiar with the confabs between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Google, the search …
I don't know the delivery/quality lifecycle for Safari add-ins etc but, as Apple love their walled gardens, I would suspect that Apple would have had to test it too in Safari, in which case they are also guilty, guilty, guilty (allegedly)!
Two big behemoths like this should really get a substantial unhappy slapping whenever they do this. It's not as if they don't have bandwidth/resources to put it through a proper quality inspection.
They released the code knowing the bug was there from what I can gather. That could be construed as malicious, that's what's being investigated, that and was it a deliberate act on Googles part or just another 'rogue' engineer?
In which case they'll say sorry and promise not to do it again. Again. I'd imagine
Should have Apple closed the loop hole? Probably,
I've tested software for a living in the past and as we all know, there's plenty of code that ships with bugs. Was this particular scenario tested for at apple? Dunno, it's possible that it wasn't. It's possible that it wasn't even thought of. As in it was an 'unknown unknown'
Let's see what the investigation turns up
They did it to IE users at around the same time
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2012/02/20/google-bypassing-user-privacy-settings.aspx
I'd say deliberate and malicious. One browser might be a mistake. Two starts looking like company policy. It's well known that Google places little value on privacy
It's possible to fingerprint a browser several times over. Take a look at http://panopticlick.eff.org/ - a website can detect the fonts you have installed, plugins, screen size - the list goes on. Even without Javascript enabled, things like the browser user agent and your IP may fingerprint you. See http://browserspy.dk as well - lots of ways to fingerprint browsers.
Regardless of if you browse in "private mode" or not, regardless of what browser you use, you are *easy* to track. And that's without ever touching Flash or Java, too.
"I don't see what they did wrong? If the browser had a bug that allowed tracking when the user turned it off surely its apples fault?"
The fact that Google took an overt action to bypass the clear intent and wishes of the user. Meaning that regarded of the defect existence the end user had decided not to 'opt-in', Google still violated their privacy rights.
Its an overt act, clear mens rea (guilty mind), and a weak justification.
Since they were already on 'double secret probation', they will face heavy fines.
You care to estimate the number of devices potentially affected, at $16K max per day.
Yeah, millions even if the FTC doesn't give them the max penalty.
Is it 'Do no evil... ' or 'Do Know Evil...'
You mention that Google took an overt action to bypass the clear intent and wishes of the user, and violated their privacy rights.
If I take an an overt action to bypass the clear intent and wishes of a company, and bypass their IP rights, I end up in jail.
Surely these are two very similar offences?
If I have a defective lock on my door, it's still illegal to walk into my house.
Google knew damn well that people want their privacy, and exploited a bug to bypass that desire. In the UK you could consider this enough of an argument to have a chat with the police about violating the Computer Misuse Act.
This is like the Streetview WiFi gig - they will take as much as they can get away with, even if it isn't theirs to take.
You mean the informal "Don't be evil" motto? I suspect that, even less formally, is the rest of the motto: "...unless there's a good chance we can slurp up lots of good data and get away with it (at least for a while)/blame someone else." After all, "we're only wittle...compared to the size of the universe".
It's still further than our lot got in prosecuting them. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure that the Computer Misuse Act 2000 makes their little wi-fi slurp completely illegal, and on the scale they did it, someone should get put away. Nnnnope, never gonna happen.
But then again, it didn't with Phorm either, did it?
There's a well known loophole in the US tax code that allows US companies to not pay US taxes on monies earned outside of the US until they repatriate it.
Unlike the War Driving... there is no 'ooops' factor. Clearly a lack of oversight.
> I'm pretty sure that the Computer Misuse Act 2000 makes their little wi-fi slurp completely illegal
I'm pretty sure it doesn't.
The WiFi thing involved them capturing data that had been deliberately broadcast in the clear. Whilst there might have been a few things to ponder about the storage of that data, CMA is unlikely to feature.
But this case is entirely different - Google deliberately exploited a browser weakness in order to circumvent users' clearly-stated intent. Google deserves a bloody good slapping for that.
Vic.
So, did they fail to provide Obamas administration with certain info when requested, or are they stepping on the toes of someone in the administration? Paranoid? Moi?...
We're clearly just doing what the Merkins tell us to do in putting some "pressure" on them on the east side of the pond, but why the pressure from the west side?
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