Google recklessly violated privacy laws to spike ad profits, lawsuit says.
@Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
link
fedilink
English
235M

Google recklessly violated privacy laws to spike ad profits

And they will continue doing so because the “risk” is worth the consequences.

Here’s an idea: Fine them the value of all that ad revenue + 20%. Then see how willing they are to break privacy laws.

If they can’t profit from doing illegal stuff, they won’t do illegal stuff.

@Revan343@lemmy.ca
link
fedilink
English
125M

Uhh, ‘secretly’? Google tracks everybody, what’s the secret?

You can just RTFA, it’s literally in the first three sentences:

Filing a proposed class-action suit in California, Katherine Wilson has accused Google of using Google Analytics and DoubleClick trackers on the California DMV site to unlawfully obtain information about her personal disability without her consent.

This, Wilson argued, violated the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), as well as the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), and impacted perhaps millions of drivers who had no way of knowing Google was collecting sensitive information shared only for DMV purposes.

You don’t think Google is tracking you when you’re filing your taxes online, do you?

andrew
link
fedilink
English
45M

I usually think TurboTax is tracking me and selling my data to Google and others.

Maeve
link
fedilink
25M

Why not both?

I’m going to assume TurboTax is an American thing, and that’s insane that you’re willingly using something that you think is selling your income, taxable earnings, and government information to advertisers.

That is NOT a reasonable expectation for most of the world that Google operates in, including California with it’s data protection laws, which once again is what this article is talking about.

slazer2au
link
fedilink
English
245M

Honestly at this point why are people shocked that Google is tracking them?

Everything you do and are is a data point for advertising.

Maeve
link
fedilink
95M

Government agencies being data brokers should also be a concerning issue.

slazer2au
link
fedilink
English
25M

Governments have been data brokers since the Doomsday Book

The question is not weather Google is tracking or not, the question is if Google is breaking the law doing so.

Maeve
link
fedilink
35M

just because you can do a thing didn’t mean you should do a thing.

Or something like that.

@redisdead@lemmy.world
link
fedilink
English
15M

They are. Openly.

applepie
link
fedilink
6
edit-2
5M

It ain’t stalking if a company is doing it, peasant !!!

@noodlejetski@lemm.ee
link
fedilink
English
155M

the more articles like those show up in mainstream media, the more people will become disillusioned with Google.

AutoTL;DR
bot account
link
fedilink
English
35M

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Google needs to pump the brakes when it comes to tracking sensitive information shared with DMV sites, a new lawsuit suggests.

This, Wilson argued, violated the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), as well as the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), and impacted perhaps millions of drivers who had no way of knowing Google was collecting sensitive information shared only for DMV purposes.

Likely due to promoting the website’s convenience, the DMV reported a record number of online transactions in 2020, Wilson’s complaint said.

Wilson last visited the DMV site last summer when she was renewing her disability parking placard online.

“That Plaintiff and Class Members would not have consented to Google obtaining their personal information or learning the contents of their communications with the DMV is not surprising.”

Congressman James P. Moran, who sponsored the DPPA in 1994, made it clear that the law was enacted specifically to keep marketers from taking advantage of computers making it easy to “pull up a person’s DMV record” with the “click of a button.”


The original article contains 554 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

Create a post

In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.

This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.


You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:

Learn more…


Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We’ve tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!

Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!


This community is the “official” Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other “Privacy Guides” communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.


Moderation Rules:

  1. We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
  2. This is not the place for self-promotion if you are not listed on privacyguides.org. If you want to be listed, make a suggestion on our forum first.
  3. No soliciting engagement: Don’t ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
  4. Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
  5. Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
  6. Don’t repost topics which have already been covered here.
  7. News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
  8. Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
  9. No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don’t abuse our community’s willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
  10. No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
  11. Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
  12. General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.

Additional Resources:

  • 1 user online
  • 1 user / day
  • 5 users / week
  • 69 users / month
  • 650 users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 664 Posts
  • 11.1K Comments
  • Modlog