Google Loses Ruling In Safari Tracking Case

mpicpp sends this report from CNET: The floodgates are now open for UK users to sue Google over privacy violations tied to tracking cookies. In a landmark ruling, the UK's Court of Appeal has dismissed Google's request to prevent British Web users from suing the company over tracking cookies and privacy violations. The decision was announced Friday, according to the BBC. In spite of default privacy settings and user preferences — including an opt-out of consent to be tracked by cookies — Google's tracking cookies gathered information on Safari browser users for nine months in 2011 and 2012.

Comments

Google's attourneys should be kicked out of the ba

[gurps_npc]

They had the gall to say their illegal invasion of privacy was OK because their was no financial harm?

By that logic, some freak could put a camera in their shower - or worse their KID'S shower and not get punished.

Yes, I know that much of the Internet based business hates privacy and tries to pretend it doesn't exist, but that is the enitre reason why we put those laws in place.

And who *ever* bought "Don't be evil"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google started in the gutter as a fucking AD AGENCY, and they went downhill to selling every detail of your private life they can get their grubby hands on.

Their fundamental business is to wring every last bit of privacy from you and SELL IT.

Don't tell me you EVER thought "Don't be evil" was anything other than a marketing slogan concocted by - get this - an ad agency.

Re:And who *ever* bought "Don't be evil"?

[JustSomeProgrammer]

All of them. Just because I don't pay with money doesn't mean I don't pay something.

Re:On what grounds could one sue?

[Lunix Nutcase]

On what grounds could one sue?

Probably under data privacy laws.

I imagine it would be quite hard to prove real damages with a price-tag attached.

They don't need to show financial hardship:

Google argued the point was moot because consumers suffered no financial hardship due to the practice. The UK's Court of Appeal disagreed. According to the court's judgment:

"These claims raise serious issues which merit a trial. They concern what is alleged to have been the secret and blanket tracking and collation of information, often of an extremely private nature [...] about and associated with the claimants' Internet use, and the subsequent use of that information for about nine months. The case relates to the anxiety and distress this intrusion upon autonomy has caused."

Re:Wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

Except Google went out of their way to exploit this bug to so they could use their cookie to further their business goals. This was no ‘accidental’ situation where they happened to get cookies, they adjusted their code to trigger the bug.

Re:Wrong target

[BadgerRush]

You are terribly misinformed about what the "no tracking" flag means. It is not a setting meant to change how the browser stores information or behaves, and it is definitely not some equivalent of a "disable cookies" setting. Instead the no tracking flag is meant to be sent on a HTTP header as a way to inform the server that the user doesn't wan't to be tracked, it is a way for users inform the server that they are actively opting-out of any and all tracking.

So there was no bug in Safari, browsers with no tracking enabled are still supposed to keep accepting and returning cookies (unless that was specifically disabled elsewhere), after all there are more uses for cookies than only tracking. The real "bug" (more like crime) was Google ignoring the user's explicit wishes and keeping tracking users even after said users explicitly opted-out, informing Google trough the proper channel (the no tracking flag).