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No. Google is not going above and beyond normal privacy protections outside the US. Just because you can collect the data, doesn't mean you are allowed to. In
by rickmb 15y ago
No. Google is not going above and beyond normal privacy protections outside the US.
Just because you can collect the data, doesn't mean you are allowed to. In countries with other definitions of privacy it can be considered a reasonable expectation the your AP's SSID is only visible to people within a small radius. The owners clearly didn't have the intention to have it collected by a major corporation, collated with other data about their location and then published world wide for entirely different purposes then for which the AP was set up.
In many countries, the law protects people against those kind of unintended consequences, and several European authorities have made it clear that they consider this kind of use an invasion of privacy. And that is considered more important than multinational giant's ability to offer an "effective" service.
You can argue the merits of this, but Google's stance of "just fucking opt-out then" is blatantly disrespectful.
- airlocksoftware 15y agoWhen it comes to privacy violations in the digital age, this is so far down the list of concerns that I don't understand why we're talking about it. Probably just because some politicians in (I believe it was) Germany misunderstood what it is and took legal action against Google. Facebook / other social networks, poorly secured databases, warrantless GPS tracking (in the U.S.), cell phone data being stored; these are all orders of magnitude more worrying and more likely to cause harm.
- rickmb 15y agoOh, I agree it's way down the list. But this attitude is exactly what I mean: nobody misunderstood anything. Really. Just because people have different values and priorities doesn't mean that they are too stupid to understand the issues. It certainly doesn't mean their laws can simply be ignored if you do business in their country. Anyway, I'm going to stop arguing that point, since apparently this place is turning into Reddit, and downvotes our now used just to bury other opinions.
- lotu 15y agoPersonally I see this as being much less invasive then taking pictures of someone's house and posting the location of the picture. Which is pretty much Google Street View, are you opposed Street View as well?
- tonfa 15y agoStreet View has been quite controversial in many European countries.
- TruthElixirX 15y agoBusiness has been quite controversial in many European countries.
- rickmb 15y agoBusiness at the expense of civil rights has been quite controversial in many democratic nations. Shocking, really.
- lotu 15y agoBy civil rights you refer to the right to prohibit anyone from taking a single pictures of your house from public property? Personally, I'd rather have the right to not be interrupted by people asking for money during dinner.