Archive for the ‘General privacy’ Category
That “Trust Us” mantra doesn’t seem to be working anymore.
Even people who don’t object to Google’s basic idea are worried about their cavalier attitude towards privacy:
National Coalition of Authors Urge Rejection of Google Book Search Deal | Electronic Frontier Foundation
New York – A coalition of authors and publishers—including best-sellers Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, and technical author Bruce Schneier—is urging a federal judge to reject the proposed settlement in a lawsuit over Google Book Search, arguing that the sweeping agreement to digitize millions of books ignores critical privacy rights for readers and writers.
The group of more than two dozen authors and publishers, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Samuelson clinic), filed an objection to the settlement today. The coalition is concerned that Google’s collection of personal identifying information about users who browse, read, and make purchases online at Google Book Search will chill their readership.
“Google Book Search and other digital book projects will redefine the way people read and research,” said Lethem, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award. “Now is the moment to make sure that Google Book Search is as private as the world of physical books. If future readers know that they are leaving a digital trail for others to follow, they may shy away from important intellectual journeys.”
The settlement, currently pending approval from a New York federal district court, would end the legal challenges brought by the Authors’ Guild over the Google Book Search project. It would give Google the green light to scan and digitize millions of books and allow users to search for and read those books online. However, Google’s system could monitor what books users search for, how much of the books they read, and how long they spend on various pages. Google could then combine information about readers’ habits and interests with additional information it collects from other Google services, creating a massive “digital dossier” that would be vulnerable to fishing expeditions by law enforcement or civil litigants.
[more] via National Coalition of Authors Urge Rejection of Google Book Search Deal | Electronic Frontier Foundation.
They’re right to be worried: see “Anonymized” data really isn’t—and here’s why not from Ars Technica. Google’s promises to “remove personally identifying information” are worthless.
Brilliant
Interesting elision of the week
Looks like somebody doesn’t want to piss off Cupertino too much. Emphasis added:
Google goes after Microsoft Office with word-of-mouth workplace marketing tools | VentureBeat
Google, the search engine company that recently announced its plans to expand by building a PC operating system to compete with Microsoft Windows, has launched yet another offensive aimed at ousting Microsoft’s other near-monopoly, Microsoft Office. The campaign includes marketing collateral meant to be used by office workers to convince their companies to “Go Google.”
Google Apps, which the company is pushing as a replacement for Microsoft Office and Lotus Notes, is a suite of browser-based tools that replicate and, in some ways, improve upon the most popular office productivity sofware: email, calendar, spreadsheets, text messaging, slide presentations. Google’s apps have nowhere near the feature sets of Microsoft’s versions, but Google is hoping to convince businesses they won’t miss Microsoft’s advantages.
Users access and control Google Apps through their browsers. The apps run in the cloud of Google’s server farms and other computers distributed all over the globe, and can be reached just as easily at home or on the road. “It’s all hosted by Google,” chirps the marketing home page for Google Apps.
But that’s the exact reason many IT staffers are reluctant to support Google Apps within companies. The thought of storing all of a company’s email, spreadsheets and presentations on Google’s website raises the security and privacy antennae on system administrators’ heads. Can Google ensure company documents won’t be stolen or lost? Just look at what happened to Twitter, whose corporate documents were pilfered from outside the company. And what happens when the Internet connection to Google’s servers is slow or down? Google needs to overcome these and other reactions among IT workers to the idea of browser-based tools.
Good morning? Twitter’s corporate documents were stolen from Google Apps with passwords swiped from Twitter execs’ Gmail. This is a story about Google, yes? Why omit that fact? Seems pretty relevant to the story.
read the rest via Google goes after Microsoft Office with word-of-mouth workplace marketing tools | VentureBeat.
