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You are hereGoogle's Latest Privacy Scandal Spin – A Satire
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2012-02-17 16:20
(Note: The text in quotations are verbatim quotes from Google via a Politico post. The italics in [ ] is a satirical translation of what Google really is saying.) “Google’s Rachel Whetstone, senior vice president for Communications and Public Policy issued the following statement to POLITICO regarding a WSJ report that the company has been bypassing the privacy settings of Apple's Web browser on iPhones and computers:” “The Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why.”
“We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled.”
“It’s important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.”
“Unlike other major browsers, Apple’s Safari browser blocks third-party cookies by default.”
“However, Safari enables many web features for its users that rely on third parties and third-party cookies, such as ‘Like’ buttons. Last year, we began using this functionality to enable features for signed-in Google users on Safari who had opted to see personalized ads and other content — such as the ability to “+1” things that interest them.”
“To enable these features, we created a temporary communication link between Safari browsers and Google’s servers, so that we could ascertain whether Safari users were also signed into Google, and had opted for this type of personalization. But we designed this so that the information passing between the user’s Safari browser and Google’s servers was anonymous — effectively creating a barrier between their personal information and the web content they browse.”
“However, the Safari browser contained functionality that then enabled other Google advertising cookies to be set on the browser. We didn’t anticipate that this would happen,…”
“…and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers”.
“It’s important to stress that, just as on other browsers, these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.”
“Users of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome were not affected.”
“Nor were users of any browser (including Safari) who have opted out of our interest-based advertising program using Google’s Ads Preferences Manager.”
[Translation: In short, Google hopes the EU will ignore this latest privacy kerfuffle and allow Google to ram through its consolidated privacy policy with no further investigation, because it should be clear by now that Google is not doing anything that is in conflict with users' privacy. Moreover, Google has big hopes that it can count on the FTC again to protect Google and react with a supportive yawn like the FTC did in ending the FTC’s WiSpy investigation based on Google’s promises in a blog post to not ever engage in deceptive privacy practices again. Both the EU and the FTC should know by now that Google is totally committed to privacy and tracking by design. Lastly, we are profoundly sorry we got caught again; it was simply a dishonest mistake.] Update and Note: Please see the point-by-point rebuttal of Google's explanation here by the Stanford researcher who actually exposed Google's phone hacking.
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