Australia Drops Second Google Investigation
joshgnosis writes "The Australian Privacy Commissioner has decided against investigating Google a second time over the collection of Wi-Fi payload data in Google's Street View cars. Despite a damning FCC report released last month claiming that senior manager within Google were aware that a 'rogue' engineer was working on the project on the side, he said a second investigation wouldn't yield any new results. 'I have decided not to open another investigation into Google Street View,' he said in a statement. 'In reaching this decision, I have considered the FCC's report and don't consider that a new investigation would reveal any information that would change our original finding.'"
'In reaching this decision, I have considered the FCC's report, some favors offered by Google to me in a legal way, and don't consider that a new investigation would reveal any information that would change our original finding.'"
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
'In reaching this decision, I have considered the FCC's report, some favors offered by Google to me in a legal way, and don't consider that a new investigation would reveal any information that would change our original finding.'"
No what he really means is I just figured out that I can't find porn without Google, so I'm wh^H^Hbacking off
Bit embarrassing to be a Skip when our Government panics over something so foolish and useless. 'Google has collected the shape of mailboxes on their cameras, let's investigate this horrific breach of privacy!' Our minister in charge of the digital economy at the time publicly stated he 'still doesn't know how to use his phone'.
Now it's official. Australia doesn't want to take on a company with the power and reach of Google. They'll cower before Facebook as well no doubt. Wimps.
the aussie government has easier ways to get blood from the google stone... an "Internet Superprofits Tax", followed closely by a "Google Streetview Car Tax"
while their at it, we might just see a "Windows Tax" soon, along with a "Porn Tax" and a "Slashdot Posting Tax"
I mean, what is the point? They were investigating using WIFI networks as a way of providing location services for devices without GPS, so they collected data, either in a "just slurp the lot and we'll analyse it later", or a "keep the raw data, we might find it useful" manner.
The only question is why, when they realised it contained private information, they didn't just delete it. Instead, they announced that they had inadvertently intercepted private data. Then all these government agencies started to make a fuss, and we all got something to natter about for a couple of years. Well, that's a small positive, I guess.
So, I'm happy that someone has not bothered to investigate this nothing, again. Let's hope the rest of the someones make the same decision.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
France and Netherlands were the only two countries that conducted a real full blown inquiry, analyzed the collected data and fined Google.
The found health data, sex life related data, and even highlighted that data from hidden SSID WiFi network was collected...
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Nice while it lasted.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Beta tester zerotka (otherwise known as Keith here on the blog and facebook) has been called the Jane Goodall of SpyParty, because he studies the NPCs4 and then writes about their behavior, sometimes uncovering serious bugs in my code in the process. However, because he stares at the party so longâ¦well, better to use his own words:
zerotka: I had recently decided to go into practice mode and watch how the AI partied. I decided to start off with watching the waiter and how party members would react after getting a drink. I was hoping to find some tells so i spent quite a bit of time with it. I think after about the 10th or so game, i had to write a short-story-like-thingy. I had shared it with a couple other testers and they thought i should post it on the forums. I was hesitant at first, but alas, here i am.
Toby
The other day I had taken a few minutes and watched the waiter, Toby.
I watched him from outside the ballroom.
He walked about, person to person, and offered drinks.
The guests had no respect for Toby in anyway.
The more i watched, the more overwhelmed with sadness i had become.
He would approach a guest and extend out his tray
And politely waitâ¦.
He received no form of acknowledgement.
They all simply ignored him.
If they happened to be thirsty, theyâ(TM)d turn around,
grab a drink from the tray and immediately return to the conversation.
Not a âoeThanksâ, Not a, âoeHowâ(TM)s your dayâ,
Nothing.
Sometimes, a guest would turn around to grab a drink ..i lost control of myself.
but when they saw it was Toby they would return to the conversation.
After i saw that, i..
âoeDonâ(TM)t let them do that to you Toby!â I had screamed.
He was completely invisible to them.
They would even run into him!
Several minutes of constant disrespect had drained the life out him.
He began to believe what everyone was doing to himâ"He believed he was a robot, an AI.
If i had enough bullets, Iâ(TM)d shoot every one of those jerks for you Toby!
But i only had one bullet.
And even if i had enough to kill all of them, more would spawn to replace them.
A tear had formed in my eye.
I had grabbed my sniper and centered Toby in the sights.
He had walked toward the window and stared at me.
I could tell by his blank expression
that his life had somehow spiraled out of control
And he knew there was only one way out of it.
I switched the safety off.
Iâ(TM)m sorry Toby.
The tear had fallen down my cheek and onto the ground.
The glasses on the tray had crashed to the floor,
Guests had screamed and cowered in fear.
Even though the spy had gotten away
I still felt like it was a small victory.
I hope in digital heaven, they serve you alcohol.
- www.spyparty.com/
How can a rouge engineer outfit every car with millions of dollars worth of WIFI without anyone noticing?
Look at these slap on the wrist penalties:
Don't get excited about the financial compensation. That is only if you have suffered economic loss and the employee who did it doesn't have to pay a cent.
http://www.caslon.com.au/privacyguide3.htm
http://www.privacy.gov.au/complaints/outcomes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_in_Australian_law
Sorry :/ some people are fucking stupid and have no idea about technology.
"Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress - and a Plan to Stop It"
(There are -also- some very good videos about of Lessig presenting its main ideas;
we heartily recommend them to all.)
Yes, lets tax all service providers on the Internet!
It will be great!!
So, how are you going to tax Google/Facebook/Twitter/.. ? Per impression?
!!!
Despite a damning FCC report released last month claiming that senior manager within Google were aware that a 'rogue' engineer was working on the project on the side, he said a second investigation wouldn't yield any new results. [...] "In reaching this decision, I have considered the FCC's report and don't consider that a new investigation would reveal any information that would change our original finding.'"
So, despite information in the FCC report, he's not doing an investigation because it's already in the FCC's report?
Sounds to me like he said "oh, the FCC found this, I trust that they did a good job on it so I won't waste everybody's time/money"
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
RTFS again. There was an ethically questionable engineer at Google who was responsible for collecting and retaining the unnecessary data. If memory serves, he wanted to do statistical analysis on the passwords he was collecting. Eventually, Google fessed up to it, even though they could have just covered it up and no one would ever have known. The only possible question is why his superiors took so long to deal with the problem once they knew about it, and my guess would be that they wanted to give him a chance to clean up his act before sacking him. He didn't, so they did.
In short, they're squeaky-clean on this issue, and any efforts to get it investigated further are unjustifiable.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
The only possible question is why his superiors took so long to deal with the problem once they knew about it.
But that is serious enough to warrant an investigation and prosecution. They didn't give a damn. People don't seem to follow that this means there will be NO prosecution for wardriving and unauthorized data mining. It beggars belief that anyone on /. doesn't get how serious that is, especially for a company in the business of profiling users.
Uh? They reported it when they could have hid it, with essentially no risk to themselves. Doesn't that count as a damn?
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
I call straw man on all this tax talk. The topic is privacy invasion and theft of data.
But this data theft went on for a long time with their knowledge. Management was negligent.
People don't seem to follow that this means there will be NO prosecution for wardriving and unauthorized data mining. It beggars belief that anyone on /. doesn't get how serious that is, especially for a company in the business of profiling users.
What? How could intercepting data transmitted into a public space in the clear be liable to prosecution? And how could that be 'unauthorized data mining'? I have metal in my car keys, and they intercept that data all the time. Mind you, all it does with it is convert it into a couple of microjoules of heat, but my notebook's and phone's wifi hardware goes further.
I 'get' exactly how serious it is. I have no idea why it ever became the subject for a single slashdot article.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Did it? Okay. I guess that's something.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
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