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Google discusses child porn detection policies after recent sex offender arrest

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Photo: http://www.corporateofficeheadquarters.com

Photo: http://www.corporateofficeheadquarters.com

Google recently helped police in Houston, Texas catch a sex offender after tipping the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) that it had located explicit pictures of children in a man’s email. Although the search giant’s efforts helped catch a criminal, they’ve also made some people wonder if the company regularly monitors its subscribers’ email accounts.


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Google helped police arrest a man for child abuse after locating explicit images in his Gmail account

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Google helped law enforcement arrest a man in Houston, Texas by sending a tip to National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). The search giant used information obtained from the suspect’s email account, according to a report from Business Insider. Already a registered sex offender, the man was previously convicted of sexually assaulting a child in 1994 and was recently caught after sending explicit images of a child via email.


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‘Right to be forgotten’ mess gets messier as European regulators complain about Google’s approach

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The mess and uncertainty created by an European court ruling that individuals have a ‘right to be forgotten‘ by search-engines when sensitive information is deemed to be “outdated or irrelevant” just got worse. Regulators are meeting with Google today to express concerns about the way in which Google has chosen to implement the ruling, reports Business Insider.

Under particular scrutiny is Google’s decision to only remove results from its European search engines, such as google.co.uk, meaning anyone can easily access the hidden information by switching to the widely used google.com […]

Another issue likely to be raised by the EU watchdogs is Google’s decision to notify the owners of the websites that have been removed from search results …


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Google reveals ‘Right to be forgotten’ criteria and announces advisory panel

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Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond has revealed in a Guardian comment piece some of the criteria the company is using to decide whether or not to act on ‘right to be forgotten‘ requests, and says that it is creating an independent advisory council to assist it in making these decisions.

[The criteria] include whether the information relates to a politician, celebrity or other public figure; if the material comes from a reputable news source, and how recent it is; whether it involves political speech; questions of professional conduct that might be relevant to consumers; the involvement of criminal convictions that are not yet “spent”; and if the information is being published by a government …


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Android’s stock data-wipe tool doesn’t fully delete your personal files, can allow easy recovery

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Before selling a used smartphone, most users take the time to erase personal data contained on the devices to prevent anything from falling into the hands of strangers. Most smartphones come with an option for doing this built right into the operating system, but a newly-discovered flaw in how Android handles the process could allow anyone to recover your personal information, including text messages, social media data, and a lot more.

How much more, exactly? According to researchers at security software maker Avast who purchased 20 smartphones from eBay, they were able to recover over 40,000 photos, 750 emails and text messages, and even a completed loan application. A few hundred contact entries were also pulled from the phones, and the original owners of four of the devices were found using the recovered information. That’s not even the worst part…


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Some links suppressed under Google’s ‘right to be forgotten’ initiative start reappearing in search results

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Earlier today members of the press started noticing that certain news articles were being removed from Google’s search results due to the company’s recent move to allow takedown requests following a UK court’s ruling that its citizens have the “right to be forgotten.” As various news sources played off the situation by re-running stories (and putting their subjects back in the limelight), Google has responded by restoring many of the missing links.

It’s possible the removals were unintentional anyway. Regarding the criteria for removal, the company originally stated:

When evaluating your request, we will look at whether the results include outdated information about you, as well as whether there’s a public interest in the information—for example, information about financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions, or public conduct of government officials.


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EFF warns that Android might be broadcasting your location history, Google investigating possible changes

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Last month, Apple quietly unveiled a new feature in iOS 8 that automatically scrambles an iOS device’s MAC address when it is searching for Wi-Fi networks. It made this move as a security precaution, as some marketing and analytics companies use the unique identifier to collect users’ location history to help clients “improve store layouts, determine timing for promotions and sales, measure the effects of advertising, and set staffing levels and store hours.”

If you have an Android smartphone, however, the Electronic Frontier Foundation claims there remains a high risk that your device is broadcasting your location history to anyone within Wi-Fi range of you. “Wi-Fi devices that are not actively connected to a network can send out messages that contain the names of networks they’ve joined in the past in an effort to speed up the connection process,” the EFF writes.


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‘Right to be forgotten’ by Google back-firing hilariously as media run stories on the censorship

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Google sets up data removal webform

Well-known figures taking advantage of Europe’s ‘right to be forgotten‘ ruling, in which Google and other search engines are required to remove links to sensitive information deemed ‘out-dated or irrelevant’, are not quite getting the results they hoped for. Google is choosing to notify the media when links to stories are removed, and the British media is responding by running stories on the censorship – putting the subjects of the removed links back in the news once more … 
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First search results removed as Google acts on ‘Right to be forgotten’ requests

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The WSJ is reporting that Google has begun removing search results following a European court decision that individuals have a right to require Google to remove links to information which is “outdated or irrelevant.”

Following the ruling – known as the ‘right to be forgotten’ – Google created a webpage application and announced that each would be evaluated by hand on a case-by-case basis, balancing the right to privacy against legitimate public interest. The company now says that it has begun acting on these requests … 
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‘Right to be forgotten’ ruling in Europe won’t apply to Google in U.S. say commentators

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A ruling by Europe’s top court that individuals have a right to require Google to remove sensitive information from search results is unlikely to apply in the USA, according to a number of commentators quoted in an Associated Press piece.

But across the Atlantic, the idea that users should be able to edit Google search results in the name of privacy is being slammed as weird and difficult to enforce at best and a crackdown on free speech at worst …


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European court privacy ruling “disappointing” and “wrong balance,” says Google

Photo: dexigner.com

Photo: dexigner.com

In a surprisingly low-key response to a European court decision that individuals can require Google to remove links to sensitive information, executive chairman Eric Schmidt said that the court had got the balance wrong, and its chief legal officer say that the ruling was “disappointing” and “went too far,” reports the WSJ.

In response to a question at Google’s annual shareholder meeting, Schmidt said the case reflects “a collision between a right to be forgotten and a right to know.” A balance must be struck between those two objectives, Schmidt added and ”Google believes … that the balance that was struck was wrong.”

The European Union Court of Justice ruled that individuals could ask for the removal of links to information about them which was accurate where the passage of time made it “out-dated or irrelevant.”

Shareholders also raised concerns about the the controversial stock split that gave Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin 56 percent of the voting rights despite owning only 15 percent of the company.

Page said that the company’s goal is “making major investments in things that take a little longer to get done” and that by adding the new non-voting shares Google can avoid the “quarter to quarter focus” that he said plagues other public companies.

I have to admit sympathy with this view: too many public companies are forced by shareholders to focus on short-term financials rather than longer-term goals. Given Google’s record to date, it would be hard to argue that the co-founders are getting things too wrong …

Germany wants Google to separate user data across individual accounts

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Google is at odds with German regulators that are accusing the company of pooling customer information without consent. Mountain View’s practice of storing data from web search histories, video viewing habits and other activities into a single group, has caused officials to step in and review the firms operations.


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Parody Google Nest site plays on privacy concerns with fake services, including a “personal drone”

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Anyone who has followed Google over the past few years knows that it has had more than its fair share of privacy issues. The company’s had run ins with the UK governmentUS government, and others about privacy concerns, in addition to facing criticism over Google Glass. Microsoft has also mocked Google for its privacy issues as part of its “Scroogled” ad campaign. Now, a German activist group that calls themselves Peng Collective has launched a new website that parodies Google, its privacy issues, and apparent need to know everything about everyone.


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Popular ‘Secret’ app expands into new markets ahead of Android launch

Secret-App-01Secret, an anonymous microblogging service that’s grown in popularity in recent months on iOS, is today announcing a global expansion alongside confirmation of an upcoming launch on Android (via TechCrunch):

Secret’s first moves outside of the U.S. will be to several English-speaking countries – namely the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

Meanwhile, the Android launch also is still coming up but there are plenty of hints that it’s also imminent — or in the words of Chrys Bader-Wechseler, who co-founded the startup with David Byttow, Android is “well along and on the way.”

The company isn’t sharing many details on how many users it’s picked up so far, but it did note that a common misconception of the service is that it’s mostly being used by Silicon Valley insiders: “I think that one of the misconceptions is that Secret is only about Silicon Valley, but your stream is generally representative of your address book. We see secrets from all over,” Bader-Wechseler tells me. “People talk about their lives and things that are specific to the human condition.”

“We see about 75% of people who have friends on the network will come back every week,” he says. “If they participate in a conversation, 90% will come back.” Those who are returning do so a lot, opening the app between eight and 10 times each day. “You see people on the app all day basically, an interesting and a good sign.”

No word on exactly when you can expect to see the Android version, but we imagine the news will likely break first as an anonymous status on the Secret app.

Video: Larry Page discusses NSA, privacy, healthcare at TED conference

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Google CEO Larry Page made a somewhat rare public appearance this week speaking with CBS’s Charlie Rose at the TED ideas conference in Vancouver. During the conversation, Page expressed his ‘tremendous’ disappointment in the government using the NSA to conduct surveillance in secret and how that affects democracy. He noted the importance of having a conversation about privacy and democracy as Google tries to protect its users’ privacy as we share more and more information. (Video below)
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Unauthorized face recognition app ‘FaceRec’ to soon be available on Google Glass

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When Google announced Glass, people instantly became worried about the privacy implications that came with it. One of the biggest questions surrounded the potential to use the device for some sort of facial recognition. Google quickly confirmed that it would not allow such apps to be officially installed on the device, but as we all know,  there are multiple ways to install an app to Glass and Google can’t stop everything.

Forbes reports on a new app, dubbed FaceRec, that will collect and catalog images of faces a user sees throughout the day. In addition to faces, the app will also work with things like computer screens and license plates. The app will integrate the image data collected with location coordinates to create a map. This will allow users to go back and see exactly who they saw and where they saw them. 


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Google fights to have iPhone privacy case dismissed from UK courts

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Google, which was fined $22.5M by the FTC for illegal use of tracking cookies on iPhones even when the user had set Safari to reject them, is asking the UK’s High Court to reject a claim for compensation from a group of British iPhone owners, reports The Guardian.

Google is arguing that any case should be held in the U.S., and that UK courts have no jurisdiction in the matter. It also observes that a similar claim in the USA was dismissed two months ago.

Google has been called “arrogant and immoral” for arguing that a privacy claim brought by internet users in the UK should not be heard by the British legal system […]

In the first group claim brought against Google in the UK, the internet firm has insisted that the lawsuit must be brought in California, where it is based, instead of a British courtroom … 
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Clever Android lockscreen app will work out which apps you need where

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Billed as ‘the lockscreen that learns,’ Cover is an Andoid app that notes which apps you use in which locations, and then puts the apps you’re most likely to need onto your lockscreen.

At home you might get weather, news, traffic and Twitter; at work, calendar, Google drive and LinkedIn; in the car, maps and music … 
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Boston drops Microsoft, switches 20,000 city employees to Google Apps

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Google has been signing up a lot of Google Apps for Government customers over the last year, including Colorado and the US Naval Academy, and today The Boston Globe reports that Boston is soon making the switch from Microsoft to a Google Apps environment for city employees.

As noted in the report, Boston was previously relying on Microsoft’s Exchange for much of its tasks and making the switch to Google will save the city around $280,000 a year:

It’s not just the gee whiz factor: It’s also a matter of money. It will cost Boston around $800,000 to move over to Gmail, Google Docs for word processing, and Google’s cloud service for storing documents. But by dropping some Microsoft products, the city government will save at least $280,000 a year.

Microsoft responded to the decision in a statement to the Boston Globe, claiming, “Google’s investments in these areas are inadequate, and they lack the proper protections most organizations require.”
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Talking Schmidt: I propose that at the age of 18, you should change your name [Video]

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via edudemic.com

via edudemic.com

Wow, that didn’t take long. Last week we debuted our new series Talking Schmidt where we take a moment to celebrate some of the Google chairman’s more colorful statements, and today Schmidt already delivered the next round of material.

Eric Schmidt spoke today (as he has been doing an awful lot lately) at New York University’s Stern school of business where he jokingly suggested that young people should change their name at the age of 18 as a general policy to address growing privacy concerns that Internet services present.

We can probably expect more of these unforgettable lines as Eric Schmidt promotes his new book The New Digital Age with his coauthor Jared Cohen.


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Google exec says Microsoft’s Scroogled ads are ‘misleading and intellectually dishonest’

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Microsoft’s latest smear campaign against Google services kicked into full gear earlier this month with the launch of several online video and print ads as part of its “Scroogled” campaign. Privacy is at the heart of the issues with Gmail depicted in the commercials, with the majority highlighting how Google scans the bodies of emails to serve up relevant ads in Gmail. According to a report from Datamation, Google executives commented on the claims during a panel discussion yesterday with heads from Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla at the RSA Security conference.

Challenging Microsoft’s claims, Google’s Senior Privacy Counsel Keith Enright said the following:

Microsoft alleges that Google’s contextual ads, which show up alongside user email, is a violation of user privacy. Google does not agree. Enright noted that the use of automated algorithms is commonplace across multiple facets of technology and is not an issue of privacy. He added that automated algorithms are used to make the contextual ads more relevant. “The idea that doing that (contextual advertising) is in any way detrimental to privacy, or is antithetical to the interests of our users, I think is misleading and intellectually dishonest,” Enright said.

Enright continued:
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