privacy – rgbFilter

Bill C-32 and digital locks

June 8, 2010 Doug Groves bill C-32, copyright, digital locks, DMCA, DRM, Michael Geist, privacy1 Comment

When the Canadian government put forth it’s new copyright bill last week there were few surprises. The new bill still supports making circumvention of digital locks illegal, thereby negating many of the fair dealing provisions allowed for in the Conservative’s ‘new and improved’ version of bill C-61. Support for freeing up the DRM section of bill C-32 has been growing since it’s announcement. Besides the large swath of consumers opposed to DRM’ed content, groups such as The Canadian Booksellers Association and the Retail Council of Canada are saying “some parts…

Google accidentally collected WiFi data

May 14, 2010May 15, 2010 Doug Groves google, privacy, Street View0 comment

In their recent blog update, Google admitted that they inadvertently gathered data from unencrypted WiFi networks, using the Street View cars as the collectors. This comes about a month after Germany’s data protection agency (DPA) in Hamburg started looking more closely at what the Street View vehicles were doing, after it was discovered that the cars were logging access points. Google initially reported that they were merely collecting the locations of access points as they snapped photos and mapped building, but as it turns out, they were actually collecting payload…

Who needs privacy? Not Facebook and Google.

May 14, 2010July 30, 2014 Doug Groves cartoon, editorial comic, Eric Schmidt, facebook, google, Mark Zuckerberg, privacy, rgbcomic0 comment

Something’s gotta give…

Wardriving the planet: Google Street View style

April 26, 2010 Doug Groves google, privacy, Street View, wardriving2 Comments

Most people love the Street View function in Google Maps, and rightly so. It’s a neat gimmick at the very least, and if you find yourself in an unknown area, it can actually be useful. It’s helped fight crime, by helping police rescue an allegedly kidnapped girl, but the Street View cars have been at the centre of controversy before, including snapping pics while driving along private roads, killing Bambi and more. This this now includes the Street View cars operating as the world’s largest fleet of wardriving vehicles. Wardriving…

Mozilla exec recommends Bing for search

December 11, 2009December 11, 2009 Doug Groves Aza Dotzler, bing, Eric Schmidt, google, Microsoft, Mozilla, privacy, search4 Comments

Asa Dotzler, Mozilla’s director of community development watched Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt talk about privacy concerns in a CNBC interview, and was compelled to respond with recommending Microsoft’s Bing as the search engine of choice for Mozilla’s Firefox. This is what Schmidt said… “I think judgment matters… If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information…

Facebook Bows To Canadian Privacy Commish

August 27, 2009August 27, 2009 Doug Groves canada, facebook, privacy8 Comments

Just over a month ago, we talked about Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart’s ruling that the ubiquitous Facebook was indeed violating Canadian privacy laws, including making personal information available to 3rd party Facebook application developers. Well, during a press conference today, Ms. Stoddart has announced that Facebook has indeed agreed to all the changes… “This is an extremely important change,” said Ms. Stoddart. “I would like to thank Facebook for its co-operation throughout this investigation.” Facebook will provide new notifications for users, additions to its privacy policy, and technical changes…

Facebook Violates Canadian Privacy Law

July 16, 2009July 16, 2009 Doug Groves canada, facebook, privacy7 Comments

Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has found that social web giant Facebook violates a number of Canadian privacy laws. Facebook has about 12 million Canadian users alone, so the privacy concerns affect a large swath of the population. One of the most egregious concerns is that when a user decides to delete their Facebook account, their personal data remains on the site, and is still accessible by 3rd party applications. An overarching concern was that, although Facebook provides information about its privacy practices, it is often confusing or incomplete. For…