Go team!
Storming the offices sounds a lot more effective than summoning random plebs to testify in court.
South Korean investigators raided Google's Seoul offices this morning as part of a probe into the search and advertising giant's privacy policies. Police were looking for evidence of illegal data collection by AdMob – Google's mobile advertising service. A South Korean police official told the BBC: "We suspect AdMob collected …
Gone are the days of 'you need to know anything, just Google' now it's 'what do you mean those bastards have this info?'.
It was alright when governements and 'authorities' used Google to find info, now it appears that Google is stealing our souls and, far far worse, maybe even providing useful information to everyone. It was fine when we knew Google had adverts everywhere that were being targetted to the user , that was handy not to have to worry about finding things. It's great to beable to have Amazon know so much about you you don't even need to log in to be able to buy stuff - just one click will do it all. It's great to have your smartphone know where you are and who your mates are and where they are and if you're gay, bi or straight. We were so happy then, a few months ago when sharing was so popular we needed everyone to know everything about us to be 'friends', 'buddies' or stream of conciousness Twitterfans.
Along comes Wikileaks and somehow world+dog is in to privacy.
WTF has it to do with Google?
OK so Google may be collecting info about your phone and location. So what? Frankly I am quite pleased that someone, somewhere knows where I could be simply from the point of safety. The UK authorities use this to good effect when tracing missing people.
As long as my phone conversations, texts and internet content usage remains private and not monitored, I really couldn't care if Google knew the make and model of my phone, MAC or IP address , whether it was in Afghanistan or in my pocket.
If these users are so paranoid about Google intruding on their privacy, turn the phone off, don't use the Internet or whatever location tracking facilities. Don't use an Android phone or Google! It is a free world after all (for some).
Manufacturers control over a device has to be regulated, what if you could pay to find out where somoneone was at the moment (much like you can pay to access someones birth records or a buildings listed occupants via the electoral role).
I'm guessing you wouldn't be happy with that, and if it's not okay for a stranger to do it, why is it ok for an advertising agency to do it.
Opting out isn't an option. What if all car manufactuers decided to offer a new ad service where the car would automatically drive you to the nearest starbucks once a month, would you give up driving.
Dear MountfordD,
Since you are so "pleased that someone, somewhere knows where [you] could be simply from a point of safety", kindly put your money where your mouth is and provide us all with details of the "MAC address, network strength and GPS co-ordinates for any Wi-Fi networks in your vicinity, as well as the time and phone ID information". We are waiting...
In answer to your question, in case you still do not understand, YES there really is a privacy problem.