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Google sued for 'clandestine tracking' of UK iPhone users' browsing data
- frockington 8y agoHopefully the latest regulatory fad in Europe will shift focus away from promoting diesel cars and gmo free crops
- fwdpropaganda 8y agoWhy is it that most of your comments are talking shit about EU? I'd understand if you were living in the EU and frustrated with your life, but given that you're not don't you have anything more interesting to think about? Regardless of how much merit there is to your statements, it's a bit strange that's the one thing you talk about.
- frockington 8y agoI'm interested in it so I click on mostly GDPR articles, I think about other things but those are outside of the hacker news article scope for the time being
- needToSay 8y agoYou're a vile nigger
- sctb 8y agoPlease no generic flamewar tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Sephr 8y agoWhat does "bypassed privacy settings of Apple’s Safari browser" mean? Ignoring the DNT header? Setting third party cookies? Something about ITP? This article has practically no details about the actual accusation.
- kyrra 8y agoIt seems it's related to the same issue the FTC went after Google for: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2012/08/google-will-pay-225-million-settle-ftc-charges-it-misrepresented https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2012/08/googl...
- DannyBee 8y agoYeah, the facts seem identical. I'm actually a little surprised it wouldn't be over the statute of limitations, but i also don't know all the filing details here.
- mjw1007 8y agoFor what it's worth, their FAQ says « If this happened in 2011, why is the claim only being brought now? In 2015, three individuals brought a claim against Google claiming their privacy rights had been breached by Google using the Safari Workaround. That case, Vidal Hall v Google, settled on confidential terms, but the Court found that the claim raised serious issues which merited a full trial. That case opened the door to holding Google to account by bringing an action on behalf of the millions of iPhone users affected by Google’s actions and claim the compensation they may be owed. » The current case seems to have been filed in November 2017.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago> Specifically, Google used a bit of JavaScript code – the workaround – to bypass Safari’s default blocking of third-party cookies (set by domains other than those being visited) in order to allow sites within its DoubleClick ad network to track users. https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/11/30/google-sued-over-iphone-safari-workaround-data-snooping/ https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/11/30/google-sued-over...
- ams6110 8y agoWhile I don't condone bypassing a users intent, I'm struggling to see the damage claim here. So some Safari users got more targeted ads than they would otherwise have seen. Does that merit financial compensation?
- bitcharmer 8y agoThis is one of those things that make me very pessimistic about the future of our civilisation. Instead of empowering common folk and accelerating our potential as a species what is happening is our thoughts, interests, fears, relationships and most intimate secrets gradually become a commodity in the hands of a few powerful companies. The trend is clear and I am really fearful for my children's future. It's really depressing to watch the world change into something many of mankind's greatest thinkers feared the most.
- ta4543322 8y agoIt is extremely depressing seeing the likes of Google, Facebook, Microsoft etc have already headed down this direction. Over my 20 or so years in IT, it's devolved into scummy rent-seeking and a consumer hostile VC hot mess.
- cup-of-tea 8y agoThat's one of the reasons my children don't exist.
- fixermark 8y agoWhat does "empowering common folk" look like? How does one even build a workable definition of "common" without aggregating data somewhere to build averages?
- zamazingo 8y agoParent probably meant e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth
- sandov 8y agoYeah, but whose fault is it? Big companies offering these abusive services or the common folk's who agree to use these services without giving a fuck about their personal information?
- flukus 8y ago
- wgx 8y agoAnd no engineer at Google said “hey, should we be hacking our way around the user’s privacy settings?”, or blew the whistle?
- TAForObvReasons 8y agoCertainly no one who had any power to stop it blew the whistle. "Move fast and break things", including user privacy settings
- wiz21c 8y agoI wonder how many engineers are trained, even a bit, in ethics...
- todd10203040 8y agoAt least in Canada, to be labeled as a professional engineer, even if it's a computer engineer, there are mandatory codes of ethics you have to follow. I had an ethics class during my time at college for their computer engineering technologist, and you definitely do get taught these things. In Ontario, we have a group called OACETT, if you want to label yourself as a certified engineer, you have to be a part of this organization and vow to follow certain codes of ethics. The only problem is, software developers don't count, and many people who are hired to write code, myself included, are never required to have this certification. I wish we were treated more like electrical engineers, structural engineers, etc, but for some reason code still isn't considered to be a safety risk to humans like a bridge or wiring in a house is.
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoYou'd think somewhere around the point people started controlling nuclear reactors with software that software development should've fallen into this category. Which is long before now, where we control everybody's cars with software.
- mike-cardwell 8y ago
- sqdbps 8y agoAnother reason to scrap class-action lawsuits - other than they clog up the courts with mostly frivolous claims seeking payoff and that lawyers get the bulk of the winfall while dividing the scraps among their clients - it would also do away with plaintiffs' lawyers overselling their cases and supplying newspapers with a steady stream of clickbait.
- zaksoup 8y agoGenuinely curious: what recourse exists for folks who aren't google-sized with google-sized legal teams to push back against bad-faith/illegal actions like this particular one. It seems clear that they acted against their users interests, even if the legality has yet to be determined. Google's de-facto monopoly on web advertising means that there's no other good option, though (and it's not as easy to avoid 'all ads served by google' the way it is to, say, stop buying Nike shoes because you don't like their business practices).
- sqdbps 8y agoThe relevant regulator not the courts. Also in this case there was no harm done and certainly the plaintiffs can't prove any. Google acknowledged the bug that was fixed back in early 2012!! this lawsuit is a money grab, most of them are.
- zaksoup 8y agoyou didn't really answer my question, and it also seems like the claim that there was no harm done is a bit specious, enough users to form a class certainly seem to feel harmed.
- sqdbps 8y agoFeeling harmed and actually being harmed are different things. There is also something to be said about the general societal ill of feeling entitled to compensation for the slightest of perceived harms.
- DannyBee 8y agoI'm pretty sure this is the same incident from https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-pays-17m-to-settle-safari-cookie-privacy-bypass-charge/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-pays-17m-to-settle-safa... (which is from 2013) just a lawsuit in a different country over the same set of facts.
- ggggtez 8y agoWhen I saw the headline, I knew it sounded familiar. Thanks.
- whydoineedthis 8y agoI feel like the UK parliament is creating ane enforcing archaic privacy rules because they realized they can not compete on the technology front with US companies. Their plan is literally to sue US companies in order to gain a small footing/edge. I think what they are going to get is increasingly blocked. China is looking way more open an profitable to do business in comparitively.
- ionised 8y agoThis is that same tired, old accusation of protectionism in the UK and EU, and it's totally baseless. US tech giants are behaving unethically and in some cases illegally. As soon as the countries in which they do business decide enough is enough, people (Americans I assume) cry out about protectionism. How about just follow the fucking law in the countries in which you do business?
- fortythirteen 8y agoAnd here I was, on HN last week, getting downvoted to oblivion for mentioning that each Google embedded service is a cog in a much more nefarious machine. It's getting like reddit around here, where the most controversial comments about SV misdoings are usually the most objective.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoGoogle doesn't need a cookie to track you. The real culprit is the multitude of sites relying on javascript hosted by Google to do mundane things.
- inetknght 8y ago> Google was fined $22.5m for the practice by the US Federal Trade Commission in 2012 and forced to pay $17m to 37 US states. So it's the consumers who were violated. But were they compensated?
- microcolonel 8y agoIt's the state who wants to claim that the consumers were violated, because they stand to gain control, which in turn leads to sweeter lobby perks. This is what the libertarians in your life are complaining about.
- madeofpalk 8y agoOne could make the argument that the State receiving the income from these fines would go back to fund public services, benefiting consumers. Additionally, the state pursuing issues like this helps 'keeps the bastards honest' and prevents more consumers from being violated in the future. It's like how a murderer going to jail doesn't result in the victims from being compensated.
- microcolonel 8y ago> It's like how a murderer going to jail doesn't result in the victims from being compensated. Often there is a separate case for compensating the successors to the victims.
- nl 8y agoEveryone gets so outraged about this, and yet one glance on Stackoverflow shows it was a common concern at the time: https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=Set+3rd+party+cookies+safari https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=Set+3rd+party+cookies+saf... Not arguing that Google was right to do this, but some of the “pessimistic about our civilisation” arguments on this page seem slightly overblown IMHO.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]