By Peter S. Vogel Since 92% of adults use search engines every day means that they share volumes of information with Google, who dominates searching, 66.4% in the US and 80% in the EU . No one was surprised when Pew Research reported that 92% of adults... Read More
Hailing her state as the "epicenter of modern innovation," California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris has issued recommendations for app developers and providers, advertising networks and others as part of an effort to give consumers "meaningful... Read More
By Peter S. Vogel Google confessed to U.K. officials that Google still has Street View unprotected wifi data collected before 2010 in spite claims that such data had been destroyed. On July 27, 2012 Peter Fleischer (Google's global privacy counsel... Read More
By Peter S. Vogel Google was fined $25,000 for not cooperating with an investigation regarding Google's collection of unencrypted wifi data when taking Street View pictures from 2006-10, but the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reported... Read More
On June 8th I attended Mashable and CNN's conference about the intersection of digital media, news, and entertainment. Among other notable presentations was CNN's medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Guptap's (renowned neurosurgeon) interview... Read More
Microsoft recently paid $8.5 billion for Skype and even though Facebook and Google lost in the bidding wars offering a measly $3-4 billion, nonetheless now Facebook announces that Skype will be available for video calling! Mark Zuckerberg said: ... Read More
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) issued its second annual privacy report card with lower grades of "C for consumer data protection efforts and a D on civil liberties." Mark Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC said "Our... Read More
Since the Wikimedia Foundation (home of Wikipedia) is a not-for-profit , it survives by annual fundraisers. Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife Anne Wojcicki (23andMe co-founder) used their Brin Wojcicki Foundation to grant $500,000 to the Wikimedia... Read More
A proposed law in Germany will restrict employers from using Facebook, and other truly social Social Media sites, when recruiting. However the law would allow employers to search business Social Media sites such as LinkedIn. Since there are no current... Read More
VOIP is likely headed in a new direction now that Microsoft agreed to pay $8.5 billion for Skype . It was reported that Facebook and Google's offers were in the $3 to 4 billion range , while at the same time Skype was still considering an IPO... Read More
After digitizing 5.2 million books Google now offers new tools that permit a fascinating view of language, culture, and evolution of thought unlike anything known before. Now anyone can analyze " 500 billion words contained in books published... Read More
Google Woes in the EU Include Conviction for Executives Over Video Posting The recent conviction of 3 Google executives in Italy for a video posted on Google which showed the bullying of a disable teenager captured many headlines. No question that... Read More
Viacom lost its $1 billion lawsuit against Google and YouTube for alleged copyright infringement when a judge granted summary judgment. YouTube's defense was that it used the "safe harbor" protection of the Digital Millennium Copyright... Read More
Google agreed to an unprecedented settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, where the FTC asserted that Google used deceptive tactics and violated its own privacy policies through its social network Google Buzz. Although there is no monetary penalty... Read More
A recent report that the White House wants the FBI to have access to an individual's Internet activity may help with investigation of terrorism or intelligence, but what about our expectation of privacy? Notwithstanding all of Mark Zuckerberg's... Read More