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Google Faces Lawsuit For Gathering Personal Data From Millions of iPhone Users (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the creepy-much dept.

Mark Wilson writes: A group going by the name Google You Owe Us is taking Google to court in the UK, complaining that the company harvested personal data from 5.4 million iPhone users. The group is led by Richard Lloyd, director of consumer group Which?, and it alleges that Google bypassed privacy settings on iPhones between June 2011 and February 2012. The lawsuit seeks compensation for those affected by what is described as a "violation of trust." Google is accused of breaching UK data protection laws, and Lloyd says that this is "one of the biggest fights of my life." Even if the case is successful, the people represented by Google You Owe Us are not expected to receive more than a few hundred pounds each, and this is not an amount that would make much of an impact on Google's coffers.

2 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. Firefox uses some Google services. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't know about this particular iPhone case, but we should remember that other browsers and software can use Google's services or advertising IDs, which can obviously involve some user data getting sent to Google. Most users probably aren't aware that this can happen.

    Firefox is a great example of this. There are a lot of people who mistakenly believe that Firefox "respects their privacy", or some gibberish like that.

    Yet even a quick look at Firefox's privacy policy shows that Firefox can collect a large amount of user information, and can send it to a variety of different organizations/companies, including Google.

    According to the Firefox privacy policy dated Sep 28 2017, Firefox will send user information to Google (emphasis added):

    Webpage and technical data to Google’s SafeBrowsing service: To help protect you from malicious downloads, Firefox sends basic information about unrecognized downloads to Google's SafeBrowsing Service, including the filename and the URL it was downloaded from.

    Location data to Google's geolocation service: Firefox always asks before determining and sharing your location with a requesting website (for example, if a map website needs your location to provide directions). To determine location, Firefox may use your operating system’s geolocation features, Wi-fi networks, cell phone towers, or IP address, and may send this data to Google's geolocation service, which has its own privacy policy.

    It also states that mobile versions of Firefox can send some "Google advertising ID" to some "Adjust" analytics company (emphasis added):

    On iOS and Android: Firefox by default sends mobile campaign data to Adjust, our analytics vendor, which has its own privacy policy. Mobile campaign data includes a Google advertising ID, IP address, timestamp, country, language/locale, operating system, and app version.

    When confronted with these abysmal facts, some Firefox fanatics will claim that this isn't a problem because "those features can be disabled" or "just because it can doesn't mean it will". Well, that's all a load of bullshit! Firefox even just being able to send data to Google and others means that it doesn't respect its users' privacy.

    So we need to remember that people might think they're using a non-Google software product that "respects their privacy", but this non-Google software could very easily be using services offered by Google, with personal information unexpectedly being sent to Google (and other companies) as part of these interactions.

  2. Re:Lineage OS: Android without Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    iOS also doesn't have Google. Didn't stop this. Cause it has nothing to do with the user device.