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| Topic: Google: Use at your own risk. | |
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Edited by
Kings_Knight
on
Wed 04/21/10 08:36 AM
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Just two more reasons to never use Google ... Startpage is a lot more direct, and it NEVER records your IP address or keeps track of which sites you visit, how often, how long, etc etc ... I like that. I see NO reason to trust Google's 'good will' when they demonstrate no respect for the privacy of their users. Your mileage, however, may vary ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7612988/Google-not-interested-in-privacy.html Google 'not interested' in privacy, say information tsars Google has repeatedly shown a “disappointing disregard” for safeguarding private information about its users, the privacy officials from 10 major countries have said. Published: 7:35AM BST 21 Apr 2010 Britain's Information Commissioner Christopher Graham and equivalent officials from Canada, France, Germany and Italy were among the signatories to a letter to the search giant’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, which condemned the way the company has delivered both its Streetview mapping service and its Buzz product, which was conceived as a rival to social network Facebook. The letter, organised by Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, calls on Google to lay out how it will meet concerns about its use of public data in the future, and says that it has “violated the fundamental principle that individuals should be able to control the use of their personal information”. The search giant has already acted to address a number of the points now raised in the letter, but said that it had no further statements to make on its privacy policies. The launch of the Buzz network in February sparked an international wave of protests because it took information about email users’ most common correspondents and automatically built each individual a network of followers. This meant that links which people wished to keep private could immediately become public. Google Streetview, which provides an eye-level picture of almost every street in dozens of cities around the world, continues to cause “concern about the adequacy of the information [Google] provides before the images are captured”, the commissioners said. The product has also been launched some countries “without due consideration of privacy and data protection laws and cultural norms”, they added. In a statement Google said that it had quickly rectified the problems that caused Buzz users concern. “We have discussed all these issues publicly many times before and have nothing to add to today's letter,” the search company said. “Of course we do not get everything 100% right. We try very hard to be upfront about the data we collect, and how we use it, as well as to build meaningful controls into our products.“ The commissioners, however, said that they “remain extremely concerned about how a product with such significant privacy issues [as Buzz] was launched in the first place”. |
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At last they have the balls to bang heads with China!
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Just two more reasons to never use Google ... Startpage is a lot more direct, and it NEVER records your IP address or keeps track of which sites you visit, how often, how long, etc etc ... I like that. I see NO reason to trust Google's 'good will' when they demonstrate no respect for the privacy of their users. Your mileage, however, may vary ... Google fixed the Buzz glitch - you have to opt-in now, instead of it being automatically public. And as far as "StreetView" goes, well, what do you expect? They're taking millions of photos, ya gotta expect some objects to be exposed. In Google's defense, they do work to blur faces, license plates, etc, and are re-working many streetviews because of privacy concerns. |
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Edited by
Kings_Knight
on
Wed 04/21/10 10:20 AM
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" ... In Google's defense, they do work to blur faces, license plates, etc, and are re-working many streetviews because of privacy concerns. ... " Umm, Google's not really working over their 'streetview' because of any privacy concerns THEY have about what they reveal - Courts have ORDERED them to do so ... there's a difference ... they still don't care about individual privacy one bit more than they did before the court order - and that's the main problem. |
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http://www.google.com/privacy.html
http://www.google.com/buzz/help/privacy.html |
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I think Google maps and street-views actually should be a little better and more updated. I see stores that went out of business 5 years ago, and stores that are there now, don't show up in the street view. I could be wrong about this, but I think their little free service they offer might just be a little behind the times.
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