iPhone and Droid Want to Be Your Big Brother
Remember the iconic 1984 Super Bowl ad with Apple shattering Big Brother? How times have changed! Now they are Big Brother.
According to recent Wall Street Journal findings, Apple Inc.’s iPhones and Google Inc.’s Android smartphones regularly transmit your locations back to Apple and Google, respectively. This new information only intensifies the privacy concerns that many people already have regarding smartphones. Essentially, they know where you are anytime your phone is on, and can sell that to advertisers in your area (or will be selling it soon enough).
The actual answer here is for the public to put enough pressure on Apple and Google that they stop the practice of tracking our location-based data and no longer collect, store or transmit it in any way without our consent.
You may ask, “don’t all cell phone carriers know where you are due to cell tower usage?” Yes, but Google and Apple are not cell phone carriers, they are software and hardware designers and should have no real reason (other than information control) to be tracking your every move without your knowledge. Google and Apple are not AT&T or Verizon, therefore they should not be recording, synching and transmitting your location like it appears they are.
Google Spying Cost Them $1
Some months ago, Google got caught sniffing the wireless connection in our homes as they photographed our houses to post on Google Street View. Although the case may be newsworthy, the settlement is only peanuts. Google has been found guilty of trespassing on Aaron and Christine Boring’s home and will have to pay them the astounding amount of $1 for punitive damages. The search engine giant admitted that they trespassed when they took a picture of the plaintiffs house for Google Street View and ended up settling the case. The couple were hoping to make a point, but also realized that they financially can’t take on the huge corporation.
The Street View cars have found controversy not only because they drive around and take pictures of homes to post to the Internet, but they were also collecting sensitive information from WiFi connections while doing so. Google admitted that it had in fact accidentally collected private details, and stated they deleted all the private information gathered. Although we are left helpless with that data breach, we DO have the option to remove our homes from Street View. Recently I outlined how you can do this by following a few simple steps to remove yourself from Google Street View.
Google Maps Street View: Removing Your House
According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, if you are looking for more privacy, then you should move.
His callous remark came during a discussion on Google Maps Street View cars, which were found to be illegally collecting e-mails, passwords and surfing habits while photographing your neighborhood.
Appearing on CNN’s Parker Spitzer a week ago, Schmidt made a bold statement that was eventually edited out of the broadcast. He said that said individuals who did not want the Street View cars to snap photos of their homes should “just move.” Schmidt then told The Hollywood Reporter, “As you can see from the unedited interview, my comments were made during a fairly long back and forth on privacy. I clearly misspoke. If you are worried about Street View and want your house removed please contact Google and we will remove it.”
You can have your house removed from Google Maps Street View. Here’s how (see video):
- Go to maps.google.com.
- Locate your house by typing its address into the search box and pressing Enter.
- Click the red push-pin marker representing your house on the map.
- Click Street View.
- Adjust Google Maps Street View by clicking the left and right arrows on the Street View image until you see your house.
Is Google building a Facebook Rival?
According to CNN and Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo they are.
(CNN) — Google is working on a social service to rival Facebook, if web rumors are to be believed.
And while Google’s social-networking efforts have so far fallen flat, even satisfied Facebook users should hope that the search engine’s efforts bear fruit.
First, to the rumor: A now-deleted Tweet last weekend from entrepreneur Kevin Rose claimed that Google is working on a Facebook competitor called “Google Me.”
That claim gained credence as former Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo weighed in. Posting a response on the question-and-answer service Quora, D’Angelo wrote: “This is not a rumor. This is a real project. There are a large number of people working on it. I am completely confident about this.”
Google, he added, is threatened by Facebook’s rise to prominence and feels the need to build a social network of its own.
The Facebook threat
The search giant has legitimate cause for concern.
Continue reading this article.
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John Sileo is the award-winning author of Stolen Lives, Privacy Means Profit and the Facebook Safety Survival Guide. His professional speaking clients include the Department of Defense, the FTC, FDIC, Pfizer, Prudential and hundreds of other organizations that care about their information privacy. Contact him directly on 800.258.8076.
5 Business Survival Lessons from Google’s Spying
A few months ago, Google got caught sniffing unencrypted wireless transmissions as its Street View photography vehicles drove around neighborhoods and businesses. It had been “accidentally” listening in on transmissions for more than 3 years – potentially viewing what websites you visit, reading your emails, and browsing the documents you edit and save in the cloud.
Public opinion blames Google, because Google is big and rich and and scarily omnipotent in the world of information domination. It’s fashionable to blame Google. What Google did was, to me, unethical, and they should eliminate both the collection practice and their archive of sniffed data.
But the greater responsibility lies with the businesses and homes that plugged in a wireless network and did nothing to protect it. Don’t tell me that you don’t know better. When you beam unencrypted data outside of your building, it’s no different than putting unshredded trash on your curb – YOU NO LONGER OWN IT. In fact, when you take no steps to protect the data that flies out of your airwaves and into the public domain, you really have no claim against someone taking it. It’s like finding a $100 bill on an abandoned sidewalk – you can claim it or the next lucky person will. Tom Bradley of PC World agrees:
Information Control: FCC Comcast Ruling and World War III
Information control will be at the heart of the next major war waged between nations. None of us yet knows if the battlefield will be virtual or actual, but it’s liable to be both. From this point forward, every business person (and individual) must understand the discipline of CIA, Controlling Information Assets. That’s where the profits are, and that’s where their battles will be fought.
Take Tuesday’s decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals, as summarized here by the New York Times (emphasis mine):
A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that regulators [Sileo Note: the FCC] had limited power over Web traffic under current law. The decision will allow Internet service companies to block or slow specific sites and charge video sites like YouTube to deliver their content faster to users.
So, for example, if Comcast completes its takeover of NBC, it would have the right to increase the broadcast speed of NBC-owned programs over the web while decreasing the speed of television programs provided by competing networks. Suddenly, American Idol is less attractive to watch because of frustrating download bottlenecks that make FOX’s show inferior to NBC’s The Biggest Loser. And that is how the average viewer becomes the biggest loser. All because Comcast has been given a higher degree of information control.
Facebook Privacy: Hide from Google
The New York Times recently published an article that discusses the severe changes Facebook has made to privacy settings. This is the last post on these changes and each post gives you details on how to manage these new settings so that you can gradually accumulate your Facebook Privacy.
What Can Google See? (Keep Your Data Off the Search Engines)
When you visit Facebook’s Search Settings page, a warning message pops up. Apparently, Facebook wants to clear the air about what info is being indexed by Google. The message reads:
There have been misleading rumors recently about Facebook indexing all your information on Google. This is not true. Facebook created public search listings in 2007 to enable people to search for your name and see a link to your Facebook profile. They will still only see a basic set of information.
While that may be true to a point, the second setting listed on this Search Settings page refers to exactly what you’re allowing Google to index. If the box next to “Allow” is checked, you’re giving search engines the ability to access and index any information you’ve marked as visible by “Everyone.” As you can see from the settings discussed above, if you had not made some changes to certain fields, you would be sharing quite a bit with the search engines…probably more information than you were comfortable with. To keep your data private and out of the search engines, do the following:
Google Dashboard Calms Privacy Critics
Google introduced the Google Dashboard on November 5th to help calm privacy critics. This provides a summary of the application data associated with your Google account.
Users are able to see what sites they visit, how many Docs they have created and share, how many iGoogle gadgets they are using, Google Reader info, Profile info, Tasks and YouTube history. This is great way for users to be able to see and control their data. It makes people more aware of what they put out there and allows them to set certain privacy settings. The Google Dashboard is currently available in 17 languages and you can Click Here to Read More.
John Sileo provides identity theft training to human resource departments and organizations around the country. His clients include the Department of Defense, Pfizer and the FDIC. To learn more about having him speak at your next meeting or conference, contact him by email or on 800.258.8076.
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