“The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Monday finalized a landmark settlement with Google in which the company has agreed to be audited for its privacy practices for the next 20 years,” Sarah Lai Stirland reports for TPM.
“The commission has said that this is the first time that it has required any company to formally implement a comprehensive privacy program to protect individuals’ personal information,” Lai Stirland reports. “The FTC commissioners voted to approve the settlement 4-0, after the period for public comment ended. The proposed settlement was announced in March.”
“The FTC case was prompted by the now-defunct Google Buzz social networking service. Google tried to tack Buzz onto Gmail users’ e-mail accounts, enabling them to provide status updates and to share photos and videos, but it created an uproar when it made users’ Gmail contacts public by default,” Lai Stirland reports. “The commission charged that Google engaged in unfair and deceptive practices in 2010 when it launched Google Buzz by leading users of its Gmail system to believe that they could easily opt-out of the social network. The controls that would enable them to do that were ineffective, the FTC charged at the time.”
Lai Stirland reports, “The FTC’s settlement with Google requires the company to inform and obtain its users’ consent before it shares any of their information with third parties, and subjects the company to 20 years of privacy audits every two years by an independent third party monitoring service. The audits are meant to ensure that Google is living up to its promises about what it is doing with its users’ personal information. The company is also required to implement a comprehensive ‘privacy program.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Now, how about a 20-year moratorium on appropriating other companies’ patented IP?
So now we have the situation that where a company does something illegal, we get them to sign an agreement that we can investigate them??? I have a new term for this, I would like to call it ‘ligitation trolling’
now they only need to put Facebook onto the same bag. yes?
Just amazing. What will this cost us and cost Google. No wonder our national debt is out of control. If there is illegal activity, punish it now, don’t set up a permanent bureaucracy.
Ok. I understand now. Google becomes a new government subcontractor. They continue to mine our personal data and back door it to the federal government–rather than pay a massive fine. The latter would have been a 2×4 rather than a carrot.
You are just now figuring this out? I’ve been warning friends & family about google for years. Wake up snooze head and think a little…
No wonder Google has no fear of Apple when copying them. No one had the balls to go againts them.
Curiously enough, 2031 is when the full impact of Steve Jobs’ genius will become apparent to all.
Does any other company have to meet this requirement?
yeah this is a scary precident. big brother indeed!
Will Google even be around in 20 years?
The government is us. Misguided though i am, i trust elected officials who conduct their business on CSPAN more than guys who make their business decisions in Cayman and the Jersey Isles.
so why stop at 20 years?
so why not include all the other internet marketing scam companies?
That line puts you in a definite minority of political posters on MDN. To fit in, you’ll have to rant how “gubmint can’t do nutting’ right cause them evil-nazi-hippy-fascist librals hate freedom and the US of A”. 😆
@ 8^þ :
it sometimes seems so. but what the hell, i’ll even add more fuel to the fire:
There are people who twist all reality to fit inside their partisan rhetoric, and there is the rest of us who attempt to get things done. If partisan operatives spent a fraction of their energy on collaboration with “those other people” instead of attacking anyone who don’t neatly fit inside their narrow little ideologies, we’d all be happy and prosperous, enjoying a responsive and transparent republic work for everyone. We might even find substantial common ground if the attack rhetoric is silenced.
Collaborators (i.e., partners, those who play well together, cooperative-minded, etc) typically win in the end — e.g., UNITED States. Partisanship or zero-sum-game rivalry in either politics or economics are sub-optimal models, and the go-it-alone cowboys of the world either get themselves blown up or flame out young. Which would be fine if we all didn’t have to endure the whining.
Perhaps the doers and the givers are making things happen in the real world, whereas the internet is overrun with a majority of bitter armchair critics who have nothing to do but regurgitate greed-fueled self-righteous Limbaugh me-first rants.
Since Google will only last another 5 years they need to fine them.
Googles new company motto: Don’t be evil, that’s our job.
While I don’t trust government mostly for their incompetence, I trust Goorgle less with my data, so yeah that’s a good thing.