Google CEO Eric Schmidt who said in a former interview that privacy is for people who have something to hide now predicts that in the future people will be entitled to change their real ID basically because companies like Google have saved so much embarrasing information about them
“He predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites.” says an article on the Wall Street Journal website.
In a discussion on so called Artificial Intelligence Schmidt goes on bullshitting
“As you go from the search box [to the next phase of Google], you really want to go from syntax to semantics, from what you typed to what you meant. And that’s basically the role of [Artificial Intelligence]. I think we will be the world leader in that for a long time.” Mind you, we haven’t seen anything resembling intelligence implemented in a computer to this date. When was the last time you have tried to use Google translate and wondered how crappy its results are?
The New York Times reports that Google and Verizon might reach an agreement on prioritizing Google traffic. This would mean the end of the until now holy rule of Net Neutrality on the Internet.
Google and Verizon Near Deal on Pay Tiers for Web
Edgar Wagner, Data Protection Officer of the German federal state of Rheinland-Pfalz has filed criminal charges against Google with 8 state attorneys in Germany. He says Google might have violated ยง202b StGB in their famous Wifi incident, where they not only collected WLAN SSIDs but also unencrypted user traffic.
More details can found in the press release
Again, The Register:
“Robert McClelland, Australia’s Attorney General, has asked the police to investigate the collection of network information by Google’s StreetView cars.
The Australian Federal Police High Tech Crime Centre confirmed to iTnews that it was considering a full probe.
McClelland said his department had received many complaints but it was up to the police to decide if a full investigation is needed. He said there had been possible breaches of the Telecommunications Act.”
“The search and ad giant is already under investigation from privacy watchdogs and police in the Czech Republic and Germany. Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Justice, has also made unhappy noises.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/07/google_oz_probe/
The Register reports that ‘A patent application published in January describes a method devised by Google for gathering and analyzing data sent via wireless access points. The application says the device “may be placed in a vehicle and data may be obtained continuously or at predetermined time increments” and that the speed of the vehicle “may be factored into the analysis,” according to lawyers suing Google on behalf of people whose traffic may have been collected by the technology.’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/03/google_wardriving_patent/
