MAN ARRESTED AFTER GMAIL DETECTS CHILD PORN

Original Story: DailyDigestNews.com

Despite the positive nature of catching a predator in the act, some will worry that Google’s willingness to scan and spy on user email represents a major breach of customer privacy and trust.

Google has come under fire several times over the past year or two for allegedly infringing upon the privacy of its customers. But what about when those “infringements” result in the arrest of a pedophile and sex offender?

That is precisely what happened in Houston this week, when police were tipped off to the unsavory online actions of a known sex offender after Google supposedly scanned the images going through the man’s Gmail account. Based on a report from Engadget, the arrested individual was already a registered sex offender. By catching the offender in the act of trading child pornography and helping police bring him to justice, Google might be helping to prevent more serious and direct harm to children in the future.

Not that all privacy advocates will see the case in such sanctimonious terms. Despite the positive nature of catching a predator in the act, some will worry that Google’s willingness to scan and spy on user email represents a major breach of customer privacy and trust.

In all fairness to Google, the company has been nothing if not outspoken about its zero-tolerance policy for online child exploitation. According to a blogpost published last June, Google has been working since 2008 on image scanning technology that helps track down child pornography images online, identify their creators, and facilitate arrests. What the Houston arrest case proves is that Google is applying its image scanning practices to email as well as to other online image searches.

It is also worth noting that, while Google’s data tipped police off about the Houston sex offender’s activities, it did not directly implicate the man, nor will it be used as evidence to charge him of a crime. Instead, Google merely informed police about the illegal photos in the man’s Gmail. Police then acquired a search warrant and looked through the man’s computer, finding child pornography stored on his hard drive.

Microsoft Isn’t Convinced by Google

First appeared in Information Week

Microsoft wasted little time launching an effort to cash in on concerns about Google's controversial new privacy policies, under which the search giant said it would monitor user activity across all of its major Web services--including YouTube, Gmail, and its namesake search engine.

"The changes Google announced make it harder, not easier, for people to stay in control of their own information," said Microsoft chief spokesman Frank Shaw, in a blog entry Wednesday. "We take a different approach--we work to keep you safe and secure online, to give you control over your data, and to offer you the choice of saving your information on your hard drive, in the cloud, or on both."

Shaw said that, in contrast to some versions of Google's products, Microsoft services like Hotmail and Office 365 don't serve up user information to advertisers. He also touted Internet Explorer's built-in tracking protection feature. To further emphasize the point, Microsoft is running an ad in major newspapers this week that says the company is "Putting People First."

The ad says Google's changes are "cloaked in language like 'transparency,' 'simplicity,' and 'consistency'" but in fact are "really about one thing: making it easier for Google to connect the dots between everything you search, send, say, or stream while using one of their services."

The hubbub arose last week, after a Google exec announced the changes in a blog post. "Our new privacy policy makes clear that, if you're signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services," said Alma Whitten, Google's director of privacy, product, and engineering.

"In short, we'll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience," said Whitten. Google said the changes would go into effect "in just over a month."

Google insists the revamp will benefit users by making its services more efficient. For instance, a search on "German restaurants" would yield results not just from the Web, but from Google+ posts or Gmail messages.

But critics, including key lawmakers, fear the changes could put users' privacy at risk. "It is imperative that users will be able to decide whether they want their information shared across the spectrum of Google's offerings," said Edward Markey (D-Mass.), in a statement.

Microsoft is hoping the controversy will lure users to its online services, including Bing search, most of which lag well behind Google in user numbers and market share. "If [Google's] changes rub you the wrong way, please consider using our portfolio of award-winning products and services," the company said in its newspaper ad.

Google Insists New Policy is Legal

First appeared in Information Week

Google has consolidated its privacy policies, as it said it would, despite the concerns of regulators in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Alma Whitten, Google director of privacy, product and engineering, said in a blog post that the consolidation effort makes it easier to understand the company's privacy policy, enables a better experience for signed-in Google users, and leaves existing privacy controls intact.

Although EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding told the BBC that Google's privacy policy consolidation violates data protection laws, Google maintains that its changes are legally compliant.

"We are confident that our new simple, clear and transparent privacy policy respects all European data protection laws and principles," a company spokesperson said in an email. "It provides all the information required in Articles 10 & 11 of the directive, plus much additional information, and it follows the guidelines published by the Article 29 Working Party in 2004."

NYU Stern School of Business professor Arun Sundararajan says Google is moving in the right direction, but hasn't yet done enough to protect consumers.

"On the one hand, I do give Google credit for providing a greater level of transparency about what information they have about their consumers," Sundararajan said in a phone interview. "What Google isn't doing enough of is telling us what they're going to do with this information. That's a little troubling to me. The policy doesn't say enough about what limits Google will place on this information for advertising purposes. And beyond one small assurance they've given us [about not sharing personal information], we don't know how much they're going to share with marketing partners."

Sundararajan says he doesn't see Google's privacy policy consolidation as altering the privacy risks consumers face. "I see it as a move where Google is reducing its own risk. But I'd like to see them be more forthright in spelling out what they will and won't do with customer data."

Sundararajan suggests that Google's distinction between "personally identifiable information" and "non-personally identifiable information" is outdated, given the extent to which non-personally identifiable data can be correlated to identify someone.

"Re-identifying people based on their [anonymized] activity data is not hard and it's getting increasingly easier," he said.

Sundararajan proposes that companies and regulators adopt an "intent-based" approach to privacy as an alternative to burdensome rules that attempt to define permissible privacy practices.

As he sees it, companies should consider the intention of the customer who provided the data as a guideline for how the customer's data can be used. If a customer signs up for an online service with an email address, for example, the company should be able to use that address to contact the customer about the service but not to identify the customer for an activity profile or some other purpose.

"If companies start to align the way they use their data with the intent the customer had when providing the information, this will go a long way toward mitigating the privacy risk," he said. "There are good-intentioned firms out there that just don't have good guidelines about how to responsibly manage consumer data."

Google Goes Ahead New Privacy Policy

First appeared in Financial Times

Google angered European regulators on Thursday by rolling out a new privacy policy despite repeated requests to delay the project and warnings that it might not be lawful.

Viviane Reding, the EU Justice Commissioner, told the Financial Times Google’s decision to go ahead with the new privacy policies was unfortunate when it was not clear that these complied with European law. She said she backed a call by French regulators to delay implementation.

Battle lines between European governments and the US internet search company have been hardening over its business practices. The European Commission is expected to rule later this month on whether Google has breached antitrust laws in the way it operates its search service. French judges have ruled this year in separate cases that Google abused its dominance in the online mapping market and in its AdWords advertising service.

The new privacy rules make it possible for Google to take what it has learnt about a user from one of its services – such as search or Gmail – and use it to tailor what that user sees on other services. The content of emails sent using Gmail might, for example, influence what advertising is shown to that person on YouTube.

France’s data protection agency, the CNIL, warned this week that European regulators had “strong doubts about the lawfulness and fairness” of this use of personal data.

Ms Redding said on Thursday: “I support the French data protection authority’s request to Google to delay the introduction of its new privacy policy until questions about the policy’s compliance with EU data protection rules have been resolved.”

Google said it complies with local laws. The changes would result in a better experience for users, for example, by using the information to provide more relevant search results, it said.

“Our approach to privacy isn’t changing,” Alma Whitten, Google’s director of privacy, wrote in an article that appeared on several European news sites. “We’re not collecting any new information as a result of this change. We’re not altering any of your privacy settings. And we still won’t sell your personal information to advertisers. We just want to use the information you already trust us with to make your experience better.”

The Japanese government has also written to Google to express its concern about its handling of personal data.

Last month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a campaigner for internet freedoms in the US, suggested supporters should delete some of the information that Google keeps about historical search queries, before the changes came into effect.

Google has run an extensive campaign ahead of the changes, including prominent warnings across its sites and services.

However, regulators remain concerned about the privacy of hundreds of millions of users and the growing targeting of advertising across Google’s full online reach.

“Google should be congratulated on doing some things well. They do allow people to use the services when they are not logged in,” said Gus Hosein of Privacy International, a campaign group. “However, we need more detail on what they are doing with the data. How long are they keeping it? Who are they sharing it with?”

Mr Hosein said that users were “being left in the dirt” amid an online power struggle between Google and its younger rival, Facebook, as both seek to increase their share of customers’ time and data, and advertising spending.

Internet companies are preparing to fight back against new privacy laws which the European Union put forward in January. The UK’s Direct Marketing Association, a trade body, is preparing a study stressing the wider economic contribution of the data-based advertising industry.

Google’s Good to Know Campaign

First appeared in LA Times

In its Good to Know effort, Google will spend tens of millions on ads in U.S. newspapers and magazines and in public places such as subways to urge people to protect their personal information online.

Reporting from San Francisco — Google Inc., under scrutiny from privacy watchdogs for changes it made to its search engine, is launching a splashy ad campaign designed to alleviate privacy concerns.

Google is rolling out the Good to Know campaign in two dozen U.S. newspapers and magazines, including the Los Angeles Times, and in public places such as the subways in New York and Washington to encourage people to protect themselves and their information on the Web. The campaign offers practical advice and tips, including how to manage what kind of data people share with Google and websites.

Google, whose success depends on users feeling comfortable enough to spend huge chunks of their time online, originally launched the campaign in Britain in October.

The Internet search giant is trying to drum up publicity stateside as discomfort spreads with its new search feature called Search plus Your World, in which photos, updates and other private information from its Google+ social network are blended with search results.

Last week, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission widened its antitrust probe of the search engine to include Google+, according to a person who is familiar with the investigation but requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak on the matter. The agency is examining whether the company is giving preferential treatment to its own services in violation of antitrust laws. The FTC made the move after the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington advocacy group, filed a complaint about the search changes on privacy and antitrust grounds. Twitter Inc. has also complained that the new search feature harms competitors.

Google, which handles about two-thirds of all search queries in the U.S., is looking to blunt competition from social networking giant Facebook Inc., which has an alliance with Microsoft Corp.'s Bing search engine. Bing began displaying information from Facebook last year. Facebook has more than 800 million members, compared with more than 40 million for Google+ as of October.

Google's director of privacy, Alma Whitten, called the Good to Know privacy campaign "quite ambitious."

"Given who we are, we have a strong incentive to make the Internet a place that people feel safe to do interesting things," Whitten said.

Google, one of the world's biggest advertising companies, is increasingly using advertising on television and elsewhere to promote its powerful online brand offline. With the Good to Know campaign, it's spending tens of millions of dollars to connect with users over privacy and security as regulatory storm clouds gather.

Google, which has come under fire for privacy blunders in the U.S. and Europe, is wrestling with heightened government scrutiny around the world.

Last year it agreed to settle FTC claims that it used deceptive tactics and violated its own privacy policies when it introduced the Buzz social networking service. The settlement is in effect for 20 years and covers future situations such as Google's collection of Wi-Fi data. Google agreed to an independent audit of privacy procedures every other year. The Electronic Privacy Information Center asked the FTC to investigate whether consumers were harmed when users of Google's Gmail service had private email contact information automatically displayed when they enrolled in Buzz, which Google has since shut down.

Google is banking that the campaign will cast it in a positive light and help it sidestep some of the regulatory issues that stymied Microsoft's ability to innovate, said Danny Sullivan, editor of the website SearchEngineLand.

"Google is thinking, 'We had better do a better job explaining this or we will have Congress stepping in to regulate us in a way that might be harmful to our business,' " he said.

More Uproar About New Google Privacy Policies

First appeared in USA Today

An advocacy group went to court on Wednesday to block Google from making a policy change that could lead to the search giant assembling richer behavior profiles of people who use more than one of its popular online services.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint asking a Washington, D.C., district court judge to restrain Google from making the policy change on March 1. EPIC also asked the judge to order the Federal Trade Commission to enforce a standing court order that prohibits Google from misrepresenting its privacy policies.

"We believe Google went way over the line in a variety of ways," says Marc Rotenberg, EPIC's executive director.

Google spokesman Chris Gaither indicated the company has not seen the court filings. "We welcome discussions about our approach," he says.

Google recently announced that it would institute a new privacy policy applicable to anyone using any of its popular online services. The new policy would make it easier for Google to cross-reference users' activity data culled from its most popular services, including search, Gmail, Google Apps, Google+, Picasa and YouTube.

Rotenberg contends that Google is repeating deceptive practices that got the company into hot water in early 2010 when it launched Buzz, a new social network that was intended to be part Facebook, part Twitter.

Google piggy-backed Buzz onto the Gmail accounts of 176 million users of its free online e-mail service without asking their permission. To instantly establish a list of Facebook-like friends, a Google algorithm selected up to 50 of each Gmail user's contacts and designated them as Buzz followers, akin to how Twitter users follow each other's postings.

A lengthy FTC deceptive practices probe of Buzz, sparked by an EPIC complaint, resulted in Google agreeing to a consent order that prohibits the company from misrepresenting its privacy practices. The company also agreed to obtain users' consent before disclosing personal data and to comply with a comprehensive privacy program, subject to audit for 20 years.

Google later also agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle privacy invasion claims stemming from the launch of Buzz.

Rotenberg contends the same general privacy concerns sparked by Buzz apply to Google's new privacy policy, which opens the door to the systematic cross-referencing of users' behaviors across all of the company's most popular consumer services.

"Buzz involved the combining of data from discrete services and it gave rise to the consent order," Rotenberg says. "This is about combining data across the entire Google platform, even after they were made subject to the consent order. As a legal matter we think it is far more serious."

Gaither counters that the company is not changing the visibility of users' information, nor how it shares that information with others parties.

He emphasizes that the company has undertaken "the most extensive notification effort in Google's history to ensure that users have many opportunities to learn about the changes." He insists that the new policy "will make it easier to understand our privacy commitments."

Two Google executives made those same points in a closed door briefing last week with 10 members of Congress.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said he was disturbed by the executives' answers to questions about users' inability to delete data from sensitive e-mails or data that reveals visits to certain websites, such as one with information about cervical cancer.

"It was obvious to me, as I left the room, that this company has established this policy so instead of the consumer being the master of the Internet, Google is the master of the consumer," Barton says. "I think that is just wrong."

Rep. Mary Bono Mack, D-Calif., said Google's explanations during the briefing lacked clarity. Bono Mack said she intends to convene full hearings on Internet privacy this spring.

The FTC on Wednesday acknowledged being aware of EPIC's court filing, but declined to comment specifically on it.

"The FTC takes compliance with our consent orders very seriously and always looks carefully at any evidence that they are being violated," says spokeswoman Cecelia Prewett.

EU Wants Changes in Google Privacy Policy to Stop

First appeared on Reuters

A group of European regulators has written to Google Inc calling on it to halt the introduction of its new privacy policy, saying it needs to investigate whether the proposals sufficiently protect users' personal data.

Google said in January it was simplifying its privacy regulations, consolidating 60 guidelines into a single policy that will function across all its services, including YouTube, Gmail and Google+, its social network site.

The Article 29 Working Party, an independent body that brings together data protection authorities from each of the EU's 27 countries and the EU's executive European Commission, said it needed to examine Google's plans more thoroughly before the search group's policy comes into effect on March 1.

"Given the wide range of services you offer, and the popularity of these services, changes in your privacy policy may affect many citizens in most or all of the EU member states," the group wrote to Google Chief Executive Larry Page on Feb. 2.

"We wish to check the possible consequences for the protection of the personal data of these citizens in a coordinated way," it said, explaining that France's data protection authority would be in charge of the investigation.

"In light of the above, we call for a pause in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google's commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens, until we have completed our analysis."

The European commissioner in charge of data protection, Viviane Reding, welcomed the move, saying it was a necessary to establish that EU data rules were being firmly applied.

"The Commission therefore calls on Europe's data protection authorities to ensure that EU law is fully complied with in Google's new privacy policy," she said in a statement.

Google said the raising of concerns came as a surprise.

"We briefed most of the members of the working party in the weeks leading up to our announcement," said Al Verney, Google's spokesman in Brussels.

"None of them expressed substantial concerns at the time, but of course we're happy to speak with any data protection authority that has questions."

Google's director of public policy has explained the new policy as a commitment to simplicity, with the company trying to explain its guidelines far more concisely.

"We're explaining our privacy commitments to users of those products in 85 percent fewer words," Pablo Chavez wrote on his blog on Jan. 31.

The new policy explains what information Google collects from the millions of people who use its services every day, why the information is collected, how it is used and what choices are then offered to limit how it is accessed and updated.

While Google is not obliged to wait for the conclusion of the Article 29 Working Group's investigation before adopting its new policy, the company has tended in the past to be as cooperative as possible with European authorities.

The move by the EU regulators comes days after the European Commission set out legislative plans to overhaul its 17-year-old data protection rules, putting in place much more stringent policies on the protection of individual's data.

Under the new rules, internet companies such as Google, Facebook and Yahoo would have to ask users whether they can store and sell their data to other businesses, such as advertisers, which is source of almost all their income.

Internet users can also ask for their data to be deleted from websites for good, the so-called "right to be forgotten."

Separately, Google remains the subject of an inquiry by both the EU's competition authority and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into how the company ranks its search results. The inquiries are based in part on complaints from French rivals.

The FTC expanded its probe on Jan. 13 to include Google's social networking site Google+.