Google in trouble in two countries for stealing data and lying
The US Federal Trade Commission fined Google $22.5 million for violating the privacy of people who used rival Apple’s Safari web browser even after pledging not to do so. The FTC said Google had agreed with the commission in October 2011 not to place tracking cookies on or deliver targeted ads to Safari users, but then went ahead and did so. ‘For several months in 2011 and 2012, Google placed a certain advertising tracking cookie on the computers of Safari users who visited sites within Google’s DoubleClick advertising network.
Not only did they do that. But remember that data that they stole from Australian citizens while war driving around in their Googlemobiles? Where they scanned and recorded details of peoples unsecured wifi? Well they where instructed to destroy that. But they didn’t.
Federal Privacy Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim, has issued a `please explain’ email to Google Australia after the search engine giant revealed in an email to Pilgrim that it still has a portion of data collected from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in Australia by Street View vehicles during 2010.
A Senate inquiry in 2010 found that Google Australia collected data from home networks via its Street View cars, noting private emails, Web addresses, as well as passwords were among the data captured.
Moral of the story? Don’t trust Google.
