In all fairness, this could have been a case of carelessness or negligence on Google's part, rather than cynical malicious profiteering intent.
Bull crap! Google had to write code to do this. Such code isn't an accident.
Given that though, doesn't that say something about their views on spying on people?
We've never heard anything like that before...
I'm not sure what you are referring to but it has been well known for years tht Google doesn't give a damn about you, your privacy, any copyrights you may hold or for that any patents. The have regularly stolen from people not caring in the least that there is the concept of rights holders.
Eric S's and other Google bigwig's opinions on the matter are known.
I sign out of GMail as soon as I'm done using it. Facebook too. Am I paranoid?
Paranoid no, maybe a better term would be woefully uninformed. I have never understood why people use GMail when the risk of Google screwing you over is so great. A smart person would close out their GMail account to avoid all the little nasties Google pulls.
Apple knows which apps you've purchased. Big deal - do you expect them to NOT have a record of that? If they don't track it, how do they let you download it free next time? So where's the personal information they track that's comparable to what Google tracks?
More importantly, if you opt out of Apple's tracking, you're actually out. Unlike Google where you think you've opted out and they track you anyway (such as the case that led to this settlement).
No. Really. I didn't. For some reason I decided to take the time and go back and try to figure out what your point was and the best I could come up with was this bit:
Quote:
Tho I'm sure there's plenty of room for improvements, Google does offers quite a bit of transparency about the data collected on you, and lots of ways to control it.
But why you would think a company that illegitimately collected your data would then be open about what it had collected is beyond me.
I sure don't understand why 'spamsandwich' and 'just_me' are tag-teaming everyone and getting all up on people about "proof" and "damages" and discussions of constitutional rights and the intent of the founders, while never once acknowledging or discussing what Google did WRONG here (wrong enough to warrant a multi-million dollar fine)...
Personally, I'm getting weary of "punishments" that amount to nothing more than a meaningless slap on the pinky… punishments that are largely symbolic don't discourage crimes or malfeasance like this.
If Google really did harvest enough data to deliver a lot more advertising to millions of users, then they probably earned a LOT more from this "error" than they have to pay in "fines"… too often these days, it is often more profitable to just do the crime or offense and pay the "fee" that is the punishment… it's just part of the cost of doing business.
This is already common practice in the automotive, pharmaceutical, energy (oil), tobacco, insurance and financial industries… they'll take a 'risk', knowing there may be financial consequences (fines, settlements), but having measured that the reward will likely far outweigh the cost of that risk they forge ahead, break or stretch laws and harvest those rewards...
It's almost like we're encouraging the practice with these soft-shoe "punishments".
The Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why. We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled. It?s important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.
Unlike other major browsers, Apple?s Safari browser blocks third-party cookies by default. However, Safari enables many web features for its users that rely on third parties and third-party cookies, such as ?Like? buttons. Last year, we began using this functionality to enable features for signed-in Google users on Safari who had opted to see personalized ads and other content--such as the ability to ?+1? things that interest them.
To enable these features, we created a temporary communication link between Safari browsers and Google?s servers, so that we could ascertain whether Safari users were also signed into Google, and had opted for this type of personalization. But we designed this so that the information passing between the user?s Safari browser and Google?s servers was anonymous--effectively creating a barrier between their personal information and the web content they browse.
However, the Safari browser contained functionality that then enabled other Google advertising cookies to be set on the browser. We didn?t anticipate that this would happen, and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers. It?s important to stress that, just as on other browsers, these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.
Other ad networks that purportedly used the workaround include Vibrant Media, Media Innovation Group and Gannett PointRoll, though government action against the companies has yet to surface.
The FTC declined to comment on the matter and Google offered only a brief explanation, saying the government investigation was in regard to an out-of-date 2009 help center web page which didn't reflect changes made to Apple's cookie-handling policy.
"We have now changed that page and taken steps to remove the ad cookies, which collected no personal information, from Apple's browsers," a Google spokeswoman said.
So, it checked to see if you were logged in to Google, whether you had enabled "certain features", sent you personalized ads, allowed access to your Google accounts, but it was anonymous? Please Google, how stupid do you think people are? Their entire statement is a self-contradictory lie. And that's even before we get to the really ridiculous part were they claim that not only were the cookies set "inadvertently" (Google sure does do a lot of stuff inadvertently.) but that the cookies don't collect personal information. Well, no, the cookies don't, but the servers they get sent back to do, duh!
Has there ever been such an arrogantly dishonest company in tech in anyone's memory? These guys make Microsoft look like Boy Scouts. They can't even open their mouths without lying.
And, of course, the, "out-of-date 2009 help center web page," they referred to is the one that, back when it wasn't an, "out-of-date 2009 help center web page," but their current help page at the time, the FTC found that Google was lying to consumers and violating their privacy in ways they said they wouldn't. Google then made a contract (a consent decree) with the government not to do these things again, and now they've been found to have violated that consent decree -- i.e., they lied, promised not to lie again, then lied and stole. The fine is ridiculously tiny, it should have been at least 10% of their annual revenues, for the past 3 years. (And, incidentally, for those of you asking why other companies haven't been fined for "doing the same thing", the answer is obviously that those other companies didn't lie to the consumers and the government and haven't violated existing consent decrees like Google did.)
So, it checked to see if you were logged in to Google, whether you had enabled "certain features", sent you personalized ads, allowed access to your Google accounts, but it was anonymous? Please Google, how stupid do you think people are? Their entire statement is a self-contradictory lie. And that's even before we get to the really ridiculous part were they claim that not only were the cookies set "inadvertently" (Google sure does do a lot of stuff inadvertently.) but that the cookies don't collect personal information. Well, no, the cookies don't, but the servers they get sent back to do, duh!
Has there ever been such an arrogantly dishonest company in tech in anyone's memory? These guys make Microsoft look like Boy Scouts. They can't even open their mouths without lying.
And, of course, the, "out-of-date 2009 help center web page," they referred to is the one that, back when it wasn't an, "out-of-date 2009 help center web page," but their current help page at the time, the FTC found that Google was lying to consumers and violating their privacy in ways they said they wouldn't. Google then made a contract (a consent decree) with the government not to do these things again, and now they've been found to have violated that consent decree -- i.e., they lied, promised not to lie again, then lied and stole. The fine is ridiculously tiny, it should have been at least 10% of their annual revenues, for the past 3 years. (And, incidentally, for those of you asking why other companies haven't been fined for "doing the same thing", the answer is obviously that those other companies didn't lie to the consumers and the government and haven't violated existing consent decrees like Google did.)
I agree completely. I haven't seen any other company exhibit such an unrelenting disregard for the law or others' rights.
For example, how could anyone think they could possibly get away with their original Google Books fiasco? And then, after they got caught, they tried to force it through Congress, anyway.
So where does the money go from all of these generous fines anyways? Someone's slush fund, thin air? Just curious. I also have to ask $22.5 million when Verizon gets fined $1.25 million for intentionally blocking 3rd party apps and restricting access to apps and removing 3rd party apps (by demand) when it stated in the C Block 700Mhz spectrum auction that they couldn't. Seems to me the fine should have been much higher for both. Of course iOS needs more security control and protection to warn against unauthorized access.
For example, how could anyone think they could possibly get away with their original Google Books fiasco? And then, after they got caught, they tried to force it through Congress, anyway.
Scum.
Are you familiar with the HathiTrust Digital Library? How about the Electronic Frontier Foundation's stand on "fair use" and book-scanning? Or how the Google Books project formed the basis for the HathiTrust's digitally-scanned library? Do you even know the reason the court refused the negotiated Author's Guild and Google agreement? (Hint: It wasn't a ruling on "fair use")
You should spend a few minutes researching if you're at all interested in being informed since your post might indicate you're not all that familiar with the issues. Here's a starter:
Are you familiar with the HathiTrust Digital Library? How about the Electronic Frontier Foundation's stand on "fair use" and book-scanning? Or how the Google Books project formed the basis for the HathiTrust's digitally-scanned library? Do you even know the reason the court refused the negotiated Author's Guild and Google agreement? (Hint: It wasn't a ruling on "fair use")
You should spend a few minutes researching if you're at all interested in being informed since your post might indicate you're not all that familiar with the issues. Here's a starter:
Google makes it's fair share of errors in judgement. IMO this one isn't as obviously and clearly illegal as you apparently assume it is.
Oh, please, GG, stop trying to defend Google's blatant violations of copyright law. They stole thousands (millions?) of books, then tried to ram a "settlement" through the courts that would have let them off the hook and rewritten copyright law in their favor. There wasn't anything altruistic about it, they just didn't want to follow the law.
Are you familiar with the HathiTrust Digital Library? How about the Electronic Frontier Foundation's stand on "fair use" and book-scanning? Or how the Google Books project formed the basis for the HathiTrust's digitally-scanned library? Do you even know the reason the court refused the negotiated Author's Guild and Google agreement? (Hint: It wasn't a ruling on "fair use")
You should spend a few minutes researching if you're at all interested in being informed since your post might indicate you're not all that familiar with the issues. Here's a starter: https://www.eff.org/cases/authors-guild-v-hathitrust
So EFF has no more respect for authors' copyrights than Google. How does that make Google's attempted theft legal?
Perhaps it's your premise that's incorrect rather than the EFF, The American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries and dozens of colleges and universities including Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Cornell. etc.
Bull crap! Google had to write code to do this. Such code isn't an accident.
They wrote code to get around it, clearly. We can only guess at motive.
I'm not sure what you are referring to but it has been well known for years tht Google doesn't give a damn about you, your privacy, any copyrights you may hold or for that any patents. The have regularly stolen from people not caring in the least that there is the concept of rights holders.
Woops < /s >. Agreed!
Paranoid no, maybe a better term would be woefully uninformed. I have never understood why people use GMail when the risk of Google screwing you over is so great. A smart person would close out their GMail account to avoid all the little nasties Google pulls.
Ah... we were so naive back in the day. Switching from msn seemed like a good idea at the time. I sign out so they don't track me personally. That's all.
Perhaps it's your premise that's incorrect rather than the EFF, The American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries and dozens of colleges and universities including Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Cornell. etc.
None of those organizations are the copyright holders (in almost all cases), so the fact that they'd like to have free books too, hardly matters. But, nice of you to completely ignore the rights or authors and other copyright holders in this discussion. It's exactly what we'd expect coming from you.
Perhaps it's your premise that's incorrect rather than the EFF, The American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries and dozens of colleges and universities including Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Cornell. etc.
Sure. Do you have any idea how much the Cornell, Harvard, Stanford, etc libraries spend on books every year?
Isn't it obvious that they'd prefer to be able to get all of those books without paying the publishers and authors? That's hardly justification for stealing copyrighted works.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by ghostface147
Where's my check?
Proof? Damages?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
Why not?
... unless there isn't any. But surely there are.
Because I don't care about you or your personal info?
Quote:
Originally Posted by bloodstains
Because I don't care about your or your personal info?
That's OK. I've already made the point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Just_Me
you have to opt out.
Did you opt in for path and other apps to take your contact list? No.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/02/15/us_congressmen_send_letter_to_apple_inquiring_about_ios_address_book_security.html
Now you've gone off the rails. I have no idea what you're talking about anymore. Sorry I didn't stick to your script.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
That's OK. I've already made the point.
Well I guess I'm dense because I didn't get it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bloodstains
Well I guess I'm dense because I didn't get it.
Yeah you did. I give you more credit than that.
Paranoid no, maybe a better term would be woefully uninformed. I have never understood why people use GMail when the risk of Google screwing you over is so great. A smart person would close out their GMail account to avoid all the little nasties Google pulls.
Apple knows which apps you've purchased. Big deal - do you expect them to NOT have a record of that? If they don't track it, how do they let you download it free next time? So where's the personal information they track that's comparable to what Google tracks?
More importantly, if you opt out of Apple's tracking, you're actually out. Unlike Google where you think you've opted out and they track you anyway (such as the case that led to this settlement).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
Yeah you did. I give you more credit than that.
No. Really. I didn't. For some reason I decided to take the time and go back and try to figure out what your point was and the best I could come up with was this bit:
Quote:
Tho I'm sure there's plenty of room for improvements, Google does offers quite a bit of transparency about the data collected on you, and lots of ways to control it.
But why you would think a company that illegitimately collected your data would then be open about what it had collected is beyond me.
I sure don't understand why 'spamsandwich' and 'just_me' are tag-teaming everyone and getting all up on people about "proof" and "damages" and discussions of constitutional rights and the intent of the founders, while never once acknowledging or discussing what Google did WRONG here (wrong enough to warrant a multi-million dollar fine)...
Personally, I'm getting weary of "punishments" that amount to nothing more than a meaningless slap on the pinky… punishments that are largely symbolic don't discourage crimes or malfeasance like this.
If Google really did harvest enough data to deliver a lot more advertising to millions of users, then they probably earned a LOT more from this "error" than they have to pay in "fines"… too often these days, it is often more profitable to just do the crime or offense and pay the "fee" that is the punishment… it's just part of the cost of doing business.
This is already common practice in the automotive, pharmaceutical, energy (oil), tobacco, insurance and financial industries… they'll take a 'risk', knowing there may be financial consequences (fines, settlements), but having measured that the reward will likely far outweigh the cost of that risk they forge ahead, break or stretch laws and harvest those rewards...
It's almost like we're encouraging the practice with these soft-shoe "punishments".
Quote:
In a comment to AppleInsider, Google said:
Other ad networks that purportedly used the workaround include Vibrant Media, Media Innovation Group and Gannett PointRoll, though government action against the companies has yet to surface.
The FTC declined to comment on the matter and Google offered only a brief explanation, saying the government investigation was in regard to an out-of-date 2009 help center web page which didn't reflect changes made to Apple's cookie-handling policy.
"We have now changed that page and taken steps to remove the ad cookies, which collected no personal information, from Apple's browsers," a Google spokeswoman said.
So, it checked to see if you were logged in to Google, whether you had enabled "certain features", sent you personalized ads, allowed access to your Google accounts, but it was anonymous? Please Google, how stupid do you think people are? Their entire statement is a self-contradictory lie. And that's even before we get to the really ridiculous part were they claim that not only were the cookies set "inadvertently" (Google sure does do a lot of stuff inadvertently.) but that the cookies don't collect personal information. Well, no, the cookies don't, but the servers they get sent back to do, duh!
Has there ever been such an arrogantly dishonest company in tech in anyone's memory? These guys make Microsoft look like Boy Scouts. They can't even open their mouths without lying.
And, of course, the, "out-of-date 2009 help center web page," they referred to is the one that, back when it wasn't an, "out-of-date 2009 help center web page," but their current help page at the time, the FTC found that Google was lying to consumers and violating their privacy in ways they said they wouldn't. Google then made a contract (a consent decree) with the government not to do these things again, and now they've been found to have violated that consent decree -- i.e., they lied, promised not to lie again, then lied and stole. The fine is ridiculously tiny, it should have been at least 10% of their annual revenues, for the past 3 years. (And, incidentally, for those of you asking why other companies haven't been fined for "doing the same thing", the answer is obviously that those other companies didn't lie to the consumers and the government and haven't violated existing consent decrees like Google did.)
I agree completely. I haven't seen any other company exhibit such an unrelenting disregard for the law or others' rights.
For example, how could anyone think they could possibly get away with their original Google Books fiasco? And then, after they got caught, they tried to force it through Congress, anyway.
Scum.
So where does the money go from all of these generous fines anyways? Someone's slush fund, thin air? Just curious. I also have to ask $22.5 million when Verizon gets fined $1.25 million for intentionally blocking 3rd party apps and restricting access to apps and removing 3rd party apps (by demand) when it stated in the C Block 700Mhz spectrum auction that they couldn't. Seems to me the fine should have been much higher for both. Of course iOS needs more security control and protection to warn against unauthorized access.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
For example, how could anyone think they could possibly get away with their original Google Books fiasco? And then, after they got caught, they tried to force it through Congress, anyway.
Scum.
Are you familiar with the HathiTrust Digital Library? How about the Electronic Frontier Foundation's stand on "fair use" and book-scanning? Or how the Google Books project formed the basis for the HathiTrust's digitally-scanned library? Do you even know the reason the court refused the negotiated Author's Guild and Google agreement? (Hint: It wasn't a ruling on "fair use")
You should spend a few minutes researching if you're at all interested in being informed since your post might indicate you're not all that familiar with the issues. Here's a starter:
https://www.eff.org/cases/authors-guild-v-hathitrust
Or if the EFF's brief to the court is too boring, here's a synopsis of the arguments:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/copyright/article/52946-library-groups-eff-hit-back-in-hathitrust-case.html
Google makes it's fair share of errors in judgement. IMO this one isn't as obviously and clearly illegal as you apparently assume it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
Are you familiar with the HathiTrust Digital Library? How about the Electronic Frontier Foundation's stand on "fair use" and book-scanning? Or how the Google Books project formed the basis for the HathiTrust's digitally-scanned library? Do you even know the reason the court refused the negotiated Author's Guild and Google agreement? (Hint: It wasn't a ruling on "fair use")
You should spend a few minutes researching if you're at all interested in being informed since your post might indicate you're not all that familiar with the issues. Here's a starter:
https://www.eff.org/cases/authors-guild-v-hathitrust
Or if the EFF's brief to the court is too boring, here's a synopsis of the arguments:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/copyright/article/52946-library-groups-eff-hit-back-in-hathitrust-case.html
Google makes it's fair share of errors in judgement. IMO this one isn't as obviously and clearly illegal as you apparently assume it is.
Oh, please, GG, stop trying to defend Google's blatant violations of copyright law. They stole thousands (millions?) of books, then tried to ram a "settlement" through the courts that would have let them off the hook and rewritten copyright law in their favor. There wasn't anything altruistic about it, they just didn't want to follow the law.
ROTFLMAO.
So EFF has no more respect for authors' copyrights than Google. How does that make Google's attempted theft legal?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
ROTFLMAO.
So EFF has no more respect for authors' copyrights than Google. How does that make Google's attempted theft legal?
Perhaps it's your premise that's incorrect rather than the EFF, The American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries and dozens of colleges and universities including Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Cornell. etc.
They wrote code to get around it, clearly. We can only guess at motive.
Woops < /s >. Agreed!
Ah... we were so naive back in the day. Switching from msn seemed like a good idea at the time. I sign out so they don't track me personally. That's all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
Perhaps it's your premise that's incorrect rather than the EFF, The American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries and dozens of colleges and universities including Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Cornell. etc.
None of those organizations are the copyright holders (in almost all cases), so the fact that they'd like to have free books too, hardly matters. But, nice of you to completely ignore the rights or authors and other copyright holders in this discussion. It's exactly what we'd expect coming from you.
Sure. Do you have any idea how much the Cornell, Harvard, Stanford, etc libraries spend on books every year?
Harvard, for example, spends $19 M per year on book and periodical purchases.
http://hul.harvard.edu/publications/ar0607/files/ar07.hul.statistics.pdf
Isn't it obvious that they'd prefer to be able to get all of those books without paying the publishers and authors? That's hardly justification for stealing copyrighted works.