Did Google Get Off Easy With $7 Million ‘Wi-Spy’ Settlement?
Seven million dollars. That’s how much Internet giant Google will pay to settle a multi-year investigation into its controversial “Wi-Spy” data collection practices. The furor erupted in 2010 when Google disclosed that it had collected Wi-Fi data from unsecured wireless networks as its “Street View” vehicles crawled major cities worldwide, photographing buildings for a ground-level view on Google Maps. On Tuesday, Google agreed to pay $7 million to 38 states and the District of Columbia to settle the matter. To put that in perspective, Google generated revenue of about $50 billion last year, or nearly $6 million per hour. Big Internet companies like Google and Facebook frequently push the boundaries of user privacy. But the “Wi-Spy” case was particularly alarming to consumer advocates, because it raised the specter of Google’s “Street View” cars — which had already raised privacy concerns — roaming around major cities vacuuming up personal data, including snippets ...
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Free Federal Wireless Broadband For All Americans? Fuggedaboutit!
The United States government is not going to be providing free WiFi Internet access to consumers anytime soon. That news may surprise anyone who read a startling Washington Post story on Sunday that seemed to confuse a fairly esoteric telecom policy proposal about the use of so-called “white space” wireless spectrum with some sort of free national wireless Internet access plan. The “free WiFi for all” story, which was passed around uncritically by Internet blogs and news sites, set off a furor because the notion cuts to the heart of ongoing battles over access to the Internet, the “digital divide,” and federal policy decisions that could have major implications for the telecom, cable, and technology industries. But the story was wrong, as Ars Technica pointed out. On Tuesday, outlets that repeated the bunk story began walking their reports back, in some cases apologizing for giving bad information to the public. The episode, which provoked a strong pushback from tech ...
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