Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

So, we’ve all been seeing the hoopla the past few days surrounding Google’s Chrome browser. First it was how exciting! Google has a new browser! Then that excitement lessened somewhat as time went on. It went from performance benchmarks being less than stellar to the fact that it was discovered that their snazzy new browser was susceptible to a carpet-bombing vulnerability that could expose Windows to malicious hacker attacks.  And now, we’re taking note of Google’s fine print in their end-user license agreement. To put it lightly, it does not look friendly in the least to the user.

Taken from their agreement terms:

“By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services.”

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Think your government is technologically inept?  If you happen to live in England, you’d probably be more correct than the rest of us.  Sometime last week it seems the British government has lost a flash drive containing data on all 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales and “30,000 people with six or more criminal convictions in the past year.” Theoretically this wouldn’t be such a horrible thing, you’d think a government would have several layers of security on a flash drive in just such a case.  Apparently, this flash drive had none, it was completely unencrypted.

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It’s a veritable heyday for hackers. A playground for those bent on more nefarious purposes. Those nifty little Google gadgets available for users to download and add to their websites are a big part of the Web 2.0 trend, and a big back door that allows hackers to access information on your system. Uh-oh Google gadgets.

It isn’t only Google that is at risk; and it isn’t a matter of them simply being lax with security measures. Any time you have sharing going on in that type of capacity, you are obviously opening up your system to the chance that someone can get in. It’s just that because people find these little gadgets like photo feeds or calendars on a site that is so well known (and usually trusted) like Google; it is pretty much automatically assumed by average Joe user that it must be “safe”. Not necessarily true.

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My, my, Google. It seems the words “Google” and “Privacy” can be found in quite a few articles across the internet as of late. Quite a few falling on the non-flattering side. Perhaps that’s why Google finally made a point of updating their main page to a never-before offered link to their privacy terms AND posting about the update on their corporate blog.

The issue was brought to the light in the first place by NY Times reporter Saul Hansell, when he asked if the company was violating California law by not posting a link to its privacy policy on its home page. The answer? Yes. That is when privacy advocates jumped in and became involved. Although in what is seeming to become an “oh so Google” move...it wasn’t done until Day 31 when the legal time frame following notice is 30 days. 

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Google is getting ready to launch their Street View technology in the UK, and it isn’t being met with open arms. Although the mapping tool is already in place in some major US cities, folks in the UK are protesting the implementation on their turf.  Street View works by taking photos of, logically enough, streets to match maps. However the photos also include any people on those streets. This is where the problems come in for the UK folk. They feel this is a blatant disregard for privacy; and that permission should be granted by any individual photographed since the pictures are being used in a commercial regard. 

Personally, I don’t see how Google is getting away with this. As a freelance photographer myself, I know that any photographs that I take (even in a public setting) must have release forms signed by each recognizable person in the photo, if I am to be using them in any way for profit. (They even consider a person to be “recognizable” if the photo only shows the back of them for the record.) Apparently, Privacy International, a UK rights group, agrees. They believe the technology clearly breaks data protection laws. 

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Your right to privacy is no longer as private as you once thought or hoped. By court order, Google is being forced to hand over all the records of every video watched by YouTube users. This information will include users’ names as well as IP addresses, and the request has Google lawyers arguing invasion of privacy.  The judge in his ruling, however, found this argument “speculative” and ordered them to turn over the logs on a set of four terabyte hard drives.

The purpose behind the lawsuit is that Viacom intends to prove that infringing material is more prominent than user-created videos. This would most likely increase Google’s liability if they are found guilty of contributory infringement. The suit was originally filed in March of 2007, with Viacom seeking over $1 billion in damages. Google tried to argue that the law provides a “safe harbor for online services so long as they comply with copyright take-down requests.” Apparently Judge Louis L. Stanton, the senior judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, who issued the opinion and order, wasn’t buying it, since the order also requires Google to supply copies of any video that was taken down for any reason.

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Sending nasty text messages about your boss - or sending an email to another company asking about openings - always rated high on the employee risk scale if you were using a work-based account. Never mind the existence of personal email accounts; some workers felt they had a reasonable expectation of privacy even if they were sitting in a cubicle.

The Justice Department and lower courts said no, but the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has actually ruled in favor of those workers. The court said employers who outsource email and electronic communications to an outside company do not have the right to read those emails just because they’re paying for you to use those services; they have to get your permission first. Of course, all emails kept on internal servers are still fair game.

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I just got a notice from my cable provider, Charter Communications, that they may start to “deliver or facilitate delivery of advertisements about goods and services that may be of interest” to me.  Apparently, they’re not too concerned about their customers’ rights, and are doing this as an opt-out service.  It’s one thing to spy for national security reasons, it’s another thing to spy on innocent people just to deliver ads.

From their website:

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In the hostile world of today it is good to know that anything you say, or type, is safe from the prying eyes of family member’s, government organizations or even just a nosy person of the street. However, unfortunately, that is not always the case. A recent News.com survey into privacy revealed some pretty interesting results, the most notable of which is that AOL AIM is the most secure with no logs and secure logging-in and secure conversations, and Facebook Chat is the worst as they refused to answer lots of questions and also have an insecure log-in and insecure conversations.

One of the questions asked was “Have you ever received a subpoena, court order or other law enforcement request asking you to perform a live interception or wiretap, meaning the contents of your users’ communications would be instantly forwarded to law enforcement?”

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Both Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault are now offering their services - and servers - to consumers who want to store their personal health records (PHRs) online. Consumer advocates say they’ll be keeping a close eye on both technology giants to make sure they have a healthy respect for their customers’ privacy.

Yet Google Health’s privacy policy admits that its service is not covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Privacy Act (HIPPA), which Congress passed 12 years ago to protect medical records. And HealthVault’s privacy policy makes no mention of HIPPA, instead asking consumers to put their trust in TRUSTe, the independent, non-profit group founded by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and sponsored by Microsoft and AOL, for enforcement of privacy standards.

I asked the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, D.C. for its reaction to Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault. The email I received from Deven McGraw, director of the CDT’s Health Privacy Project, acknowledges that both companies have good privacy policies.

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