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Google Sued For 'Clandestine Tracking' of 4.4 Million UK iPhone Users' Browsing Data (theguardian.com)
Google is being sued in the high court for as much as $4.3 billion for the alleged "clandestine tracking and collation" of personal information from 4.4 million iPhone users in the UK. From a report: The collective action is being led by former Which? director Richard Lloyd over claims Google bypassed the privacy settings of Apple's Safari browser on iPhones between August 2011 and February 2012 in order to divide people into categories for advertisers. At the opening of an expected two-day hearing in London on Monday, lawyers for Lloyd's campaign group Google You Owe Us told the court information collected by Google included race, physical and mental heath, political leanings, sexuality, social class, financial, shopping habits and location data.
Hugh Tomlinson QC, representing Lloyd, said information was then "aggregated" and users were put into groups such as "football lovers" or "current affairs enthusiasts" for the targeting of advertising. Tomlinson said the data was gathered through "clandestine tracking and collation" of browsing on the iPhone, known as the "Safari Workaround" -- an activity he said was exposed by a PhD researcher in 2012. Tomlinson said Google has already paid $39.5m to settle claims in the US relating to the practice. Google was fined $22.5m for the practice by the US Federal Trade Commission in 2012 and forced to pay $17m to 37 US states.
Hugh Tomlinson QC, representing Lloyd, said information was then "aggregated" and users were put into groups such as "football lovers" or "current affairs enthusiasts" for the targeting of advertising. Tomlinson said the data was gathered through "clandestine tracking and collation" of browsing on the iPhone, known as the "Safari Workaround" -- an activity he said was exposed by a PhD researcher in 2012. Tomlinson said Google has already paid $39.5m to settle claims in the US relating to the practice. Google was fined $22.5m for the practice by the US Federal Trade Commission in 2012 and forced to pay $17m to 37 US states.
Go!
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
hey, it's the 90'ies! /o/
You can't tell me this money goes to the 4.4 million affected. How is money used for a settlement like this?
stop using all this bs if u dont like it
greed fear ego based wmd on credit genocidal psychopaths are also minutia addicts? fill every crack... that's what having genuine secrets does to the otherwise just mentally ill inbred self imagined rulers of us.. no heart no spirit no life.. some still calling this 'weather'? run tell that..
"Only the government gets to clandestinely track everyone! And then only for crime, or fleshing out the networks of political opposition."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
\o\
What about google-analytics, or any of the other shit that's embedded in about 90% of all web pages now?
That also tracks people's shit.
Talking of them being fined and split up. Google, Alphabet and the Big 5 need both.
Because only they are allowed to do tracking, spying, terrorizing, and injecting of child porn and terrorist data in order to get rid of you.
So obviously, by media industry logic, they were harmed by being denied the "freedom" (of harming others).
I'd see it as 2.5 left, thus that would mean 2 1/2 are still intact and left to carry on as they'd like.
When my company is looking for a tool of your market segment I will remember you can't understand how not to be ANNOYING.
Spying on foreign corporations for the purpose of national corporations' profit.
That is not made up. That was literally a bragging bullet point in the Five Eyes / GCHQ / NSA presentations from Snowden.
And yes, the Chinese, Russians, Israeli, etc. do it too. Doesn't make it OK.
They removed the "Don't be evil" from their code of conduct.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Have an entire paragraph about this in the essay: http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2...
Not that I think the UK settlements would actually benefit its citizens it claims to be defending. But I do think Google oversteps reasonable boundaries of privacy that should be adhered to. If nothing else, Google appears to do whatever it wants to in its quest to gain access to personal data. I think what will ruin Google is not the ways in which it collects data, but when all that data is breached.
You already live in a surveillance state with no right to possess a spork. We didn't think you'd mind.
Sincerely yours,
Google
Have gnu, will travel.
I read this. It has a lot of information, and it's worthy of a read.
What is disgusting is that the same hypocrites suddenly forget about the local NKVD doing worse. After all they are for ripping Google off, not risking prison time for "national security" or "terrorism" or whatever is the latest May term for political prisoner.
Why o why cant the US get some gonads and put a stop to companies siphoning away our privacy.
Apple doesn't have the ability to decide what a web site does or doesn't do. If anything Apple should be sued for misleading its customers about what it is capable of. What Apple is doing is making a request known to sites that choose to care that the user is requesting not to be tracked. There is no and should be no obligation for a web site to listen to a particular user or browsers request. That would be ridicules. There are genuine tools for privacy and then there is this ridicules lawsuit.
Whoop, there it is!