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Google and Facebook violate privacy rights - ordered to donate to EFF

51 points by casca 14y ago

thechut 14y ago
Looks like whoever posted this didn't actually read the article. It's all about how Google and Facebook are using the cy pres legal doctrine to get out of paying members of class action law suits. It seems to be that these institutions and the trial lawyers involved profit unfairly. The most interesting fact in this article is that Judge Lucy, Koh, of Apple v. Samsung fame, recused herself from the case after an appeal was filed to investigate the chosen charities and to create a more open application process. According to the article she had ties to some of the chosen charities. What exactly is Koh's deal, there has Ben lots of speculation about her partialness in the Apple v. Samsung case as well. Somebody needs to investigate her.
greenyoda 14y ago
The headline on HN is misleading. The whole article is about how Google and Facebook actually had a role in choosing who the beneficiary of these court ordered donations would be, which allows them to give money to the EFF without showing up as large corporate donors on the EFF's donor list. The actual text of the article's headline is: "Google and Facebook's new tactic in the tech wars" With the subtitle: "Google and Facebook are using a controversial legal doctrine to channel money to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and other groups that share their hostility to online copyright enforcement." This quote explains what's happening: "These payments to the EFF are being made in suits the EFF played no role in bringing, and the defendants themselves -- Google and Facebook, in these instances -- helped select EFF to be their beneficiary."
- corin_ 14y ago
  While I completely agree that the headline used on HN is a bad one, I'd argue that this is a case where the guideline of keeping the original headline is a poor one. "Google and Facebook's new tactic in the tech wars" is far too vague to be at all useful - the problem is that, when you go against this HN guideline, how do you pick a good replacement without making the same mistake we've seen here?
  - greenyoda 14y ago
    A good replacement would be a concise summary of the main point of the article. Maybe something like: "Google, Facebook chose EFF as recipient of unreported court-ordered donations" (77 characters)
    - corin_ 14y ago
      I wasn't so much saying that this one is impossible to pick one, more just how do you confirm that it's a good headline. For example the original OP of this submission probably didn't write their headline and think "well this misrepresents the story, but fuck it".
- _delirium 14y ago
  While they likely have ulterior motives, the actual choice doesn't seem out of keeping with standard practice in these kinds of suits, which is to pick some charity that advocates against the alleged harms being sued over. For example, if the alleged wrong involves drunk-driving, then a donation to MADD might be part of the settlement; or if it involves environmental damages, a donation to some environmentalist organization. Since the alleged wrong being settled here involves privacy violations, isn't the EFF one of the more obvious choices? They, the ACLU, and EPIC seem to be the main organizations advocating on these kinds of privacy issues.

51 points by casca 14y ago

Looks like whoever posted this didn't actually read the article. It's all about how Google and Facebook are using the cy pres legal doctrine to get out of paying members of class action law suits. It seems to be that these institutions and the trial lawyers involved profit unfairly. The most interesting fact in this article is that Judge Lucy, Koh, of Apple v. Samsung fame, recused herself from the case after an appeal was filed to investigate the chosen charities and to create a more open application process. According to the article she had ties to some of the chosen charities. What exactly is Koh's deal, there has Ben lots of speculation about her partialness in the Apple v. Samsung case as well. Somebody needs to investigate her.

greenyoda 14y ago

The headline on HN is misleading. The whole article is about how Google and Facebook actually had a role in choosing who the beneficiary of these court ordered donations would be, which allows them to give money to the EFF without showing up as large corporate donors on the EFF's donor list. The actual text of the article's headline is: "Google and Facebook's new tactic in the tech wars" With the subtitle: "Google and Facebook are using a controversial legal doctrine to channel money to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and other groups that share their hostility to online copyright enforcement." This quote explains what's happening: "These payments to the EFF are being made in suits the EFF played no role in bringing, and the defendants themselves -- Google and Facebook, in these instances -- helped select EFF to be their beneficiary."

corin_ 14y ago
While I completely agree that the headline used on HN is a bad one, I'd argue that this is a case where the guideline of keeping the original headline is a poor one. "Google and Facebook's new tactic in the tech wars" is far too vague to be at all useful - the problem is that, when you go against this HN guideline, how do you pick a good replacement without making the same mistake we've seen here?
- greenyoda 14y ago
  A good replacement would be a concise summary of the main point of the article. Maybe something like: "Google, Facebook chose EFF as recipient of unreported court-ordered donations" (77 characters)
  - corin_ 14y ago
    I wasn't so much saying that this one is impossible to pick one, more just how do you confirm that it's a good headline. For example the original OP of this submission probably didn't write their headline and think "well this misrepresents the story, but fuck it".
_delirium 14y ago
While they likely have ulterior motives, the actual choice doesn't seem out of keeping with standard practice in these kinds of suits, which is to pick some charity that advocates against the alleged harms being sued over. For example, if the alleged wrong involves drunk-driving, then a donation to MADD might be part of the settlement; or if it involves environmental damages, a donation to some environmentalist organization. Since the alleged wrong being settled here involves privacy violations, isn't the EFF one of the more obvious choices? They, the ACLU, and EPIC seem to be the main organizations advocating on these kinds of privacy issues.