Tag Archives: Apple
AB 2688: Health ‘Privacy’ Bill Would Unleash Information Sharing
6/28 update: AB 2688 was approved in the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Voting in favor of the bill – and against consumers’ interests – were all of the panel’s Democrats: Chair Hannah-Beth Jackson and Senators Robert Hertzberg, Mark Leno, William Monning and Bob Wieckowski. The committee’s two Republicans, Vice … Read More ›
Lawmakers Sweat Details Of Consumer Health Privacy
by Cheryl Miller, The Recorder (San Francisco)
“We are in total agreement with the intent of the bill and believe that it’s very, very important that this information be given strong privacy protections,” Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California, told the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee. But “we’ve had a lot of experience over the years with various privacy laws and how courts interpret those laws and … we want to be very precise about how a bill is written to make sure that it’s being interpreted by the industry and the courts as it was intended,” Holober said. Read More ›
WhatsApp Encryption Said To Stymie Wiretap Order
by Matt Apuzzo, New York Times
If the Apple dispute is akin to whether the F.B.I. can unlock your front door and search your house, the issue with WhatsApp is whether it can listen to your phone calls. … Those who support digital privacy fear that if the Justice Department succeeds in forcing Apple to help break into the iPhone in the San Bernardino case, the government’s next move will be to force companies like WhatsApp to rewrite their software to remove encryption from the accounts of certain customers. “That would be like going to nuclear war with Silicon Valley,” said Chris Soghoian, a technology analyst with [the ACLU]. Read More ›
Hey, Siri And Alexa: Let’s Talk Privacy Practices
by Elizabeth Weise, USA Today
The worry is that this trickle of helpful adjuncts could become a flood of invasive devices bent on listening and learning from everything we say around them. … Could there come a day when talking about buying a faucet in the kitchen could be overheard by your TV in the living room, changing the types of commercials that show up when you’re watching your favorite program the next night? … One concern has been that law enforcement might subpoena sound files recorded in a home when investigating a crime, or that they could be discoverable in a divorce proceeding. Read More ›
The Conflict Between Apple And The FBI Has A Long History – And Your Privacy Is At Stake
by Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times
American consumers are becoming more sensitive to the potential for technological invasions of their privacy. Revelations of government spying on phone conversations, made by whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden, and of prosecutors’ overreaching have sharpened the tech community’s sense that weakened security threatens the privacy of the average citizen more than it aids law-enforcement—and also sharpened suspicions of government motivations. Read More ›
How Apple Ended Up In The Government’s Encryption Crosshairs
by Brandon Bailey and Michael Liedtke, The Associated Press
[The Center for Democracy and Technology, which has criticized government surveillance,] warned that other companies could face similar orders in the future. Others said a government victory could encourage regimes in China and other countries to make similar requests for access to smartphone data. … “This case is going to affect everyone’s privacy and security around the world,” said Lee Tien, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group in San Francisco. Read More ›
California Now Has The Nation’s Best Digital Privacy Law
by Staff, Wired magazine
[CFC-backed SB 178] enjoyed widespread support among civil libertarians like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. … California has long led the way in privacy protection. Voters amended the state constitution in the 1970s to provide explicit privacy rights far more robust than those guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution. But while the state amendment ensured a right to privacy for all Californians, lawmakers couldn’t envision the technological advances that would come in the decades to follow. Read More ›
iPhone Users Sue Claiming False Advertising, Cloud Storage Hawking
by Laura Northrup, Consumerist
The iPhone users’ attorneys claim that users aren’t told how much of their already meager storage capacity they will lose when upgrading their phone’s operating system. “Apple fails to disclose that upgrading from iOS 7 to iOS 8 will cost a Device user between 600 MB and 1.3 GB of storage space – a result that no consumer could reasonably anticipate,” they point out. … Once space runs out, the iDevice asks the user whether they’d like to rent some additional iCloud space. “For this service, Apple charges prices ranging from $0.99 to $29.99 per month,” the complaint notes. Read More ›
Jury Sides With Apple In iPod Antitrust Case
by Julia Love, San Jose Mercury News
Plaintiffs’ lawyer Patrick Coughlin said his team wanted jurors to evaluate only the new security codes that limited downloads to the iTunes store, effectively blocking competing programs like RealNetworks’ Harmony. But instead, jurors considered whether those features, taken together with other new offerings in iTunes 7.0 such as games and movies, improved the user experience, making the plaintiffs’ case a tougher sell, Coughlin said. He vowed to appeal the case. Read More ›
Apple Mobile Devices Vulnerable To App Attack, FireEye Says
by Jeremy C. Owens, San Jose Mercury News
Apple mobile devices can leak users’ information through an attack using apps distributed outside the company’s App Store, a prominent Silicon Valley security company disclosed Tuesday. … Hackers could offer a mobile app through the Web that would mimic a legitimately downloaded application on a user’s device, siphoning important information such as login info or emails. An example provided showed that a third-party app called “New Flappy Bird” could replace the Gmail app and access cached emails, using the same “bundle identifier” that Apple uses for the Gmail app. Read More ›
Apple To Refund At Least $32.5 Million For In-App Purchases By Kids
by Chris Morran, Consumerist
“This settlement is a victory for consumers harmed by Apple’s unfair billing, and a signal to the business community: whether you’re doing business in the mobile arena or the mall down the street, fundamental consumer protections apply,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. “You cannot charge consumers for purchases they did not authorize.” Read More ›
Apple’s ebook price-fixing
The Justice Department’s plan will keep Apple from getting back to its old tricks. Ebook prices should stay low now, because the remedy should prevent future price-fixing and makes it easier for readers to make purchases through apps. Read More ›
Apple, Walmart, McDonald’s: Who’s the biggest wage stiffer?
by Paul Buchheit, Nation of Change
Apple, Walmart and McDonald’s are among the largest corporate employers and profit-makers in the U.S., with a total of 2.6 million employees worldwide and combined 2012 pre-tax profits of more than $88 billion. All three companies pay the majority of their employees low wages, poverty-level wages. Read More ›