Google sued over 'interception' of abortion data on Planned Parenthood website An anonymous complainant has filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming it unlawfully collects health data, including abortion searches, on third-party websites that use Google technology. Jane Doe, whose legal representation is looking to get the case certified as a class action, claims her private information was intercepted …
Unless you (the consumer) has entered into some special non-sharing agreement. And unless your provider also has explicitly said that they will not share with *any* third party (including network and data services), your data will be examined. The robe will be removed, the probes will be inserted.
This is true for all the major vendors (Amazon, google, Microsoft/Azure, ...) Just today a story about how Microsoft actually opens password-protected zip files to look at the contents. That's getting pretty damn personal.
The USofA does have HIPAA (mostly written as if it's a large mammal: HIPPA) which protects (sort of) health information. Very poorly enforced and very hard to use.
Just to add the obligatory: As all of this data is munged together into these wonderful AI "models", your name, sex, last act, etc. may come bopping out - all without any way of attributing to any actual incoming data set.
Yee Haw - it's the wild west, again!
"Just today a story about how Microsoft actually opens password-protected zip files to look at the contents. That's getting pretty damn personal."
Not only pretty damned personal, but the fact it's password protected is explicitly denying consent to allow others to look at the contents without authorisation. That ought to be the equivalent of a "Keep Out, No Trespassing" sign which under the right circumstance lets the owner shoot offenders. But, of course, as the article states, there are very few privacy laws in the USA so password protecting your data probably is overruled by the small print in the contract with the host or service that probably says they can do anything they want with any and all information you place on their servers. So, agreed, the Wild West never really went away.
The pipe dream that will never happen in the US is that changes to privacy notices should also NOT be retroactive. If you change your policy and I don't agree, then you cannot use my personal data any longer. It is a little concerning that company X can claim to be privacy focused, get bought out by company Y or simply change their policy and then suddenly all the agreed private data is suddenly sold to the latest LLM or start-up.
Wow. What a day.
Google has been repeated busted for boosting sites that have their scripts as opposed to those that done. If you are relying on search for any part of your traffic, you can kiss it all goodbye without those scripts.
While I hold the position that whomever is footing the bill is 100% responsible for EVERYTHING that comes off the site (including ads bearing malware), we need some sort of uniform enforcement.
.....now where have I heard that before.......
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/03/google-deepmind-16m-patient-royal-free-deal-data-protection-act
Yup.....that would be the Royal Free Trust (...trust?) and Google/DeepMind in 2017.
Is there a pattern her? Surely not!!!!
>” The reason you'll see US privacy cases filed with claims specific to US state law is because there is no general federal legislation on data protection in the US.”
Whilst the EU has its faults, no on can say that the harmonisation programme behind the Single Market was wrong: if you want to build a unified nation/state you really need to all be singing off the same song sheet.
"The Land Of The Free" seems to apply at all levels in the US. It's not just Billy-Bob Nomates claiming he's oppressed by the local town/city and defending his "freedom", the States themselves jealously guard their own level of "freedom", ie sovereignty, from the Federal Government. Even when the Federal Government tries to put federal laws in place based on the powers they actually have, there will be States who will legally challenge those laws based on anything they can think of, especially when it's politically motivated red on blue or blue on red challenges.
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