April 2013

Sen Al Franken (D-MN) said he's still not satisfied with Euclid Analytics' privacy practices because the company requires a person to opt out of its tracking technology.

The company requires shoppers to visit its website and opt out of its tracking technology. Instead, Sen Franken argues that shoppers should grant Euclid permission to cull data from their smartphones and wireless devices first. He added that this issue highlights the need for Congress to act on privacy legislation. Euclid's technology is geared towards helping retailers gather data about shoppers' behavior, such as how many people walk by their storefronts, how many new customers entered their stores on a given week, or how long they stay to shop in the store and which aisles they walked down. The company culls this data by using sensors to pick up the Wi-Fi signal on a consumer's smart phone.

Since September 2012, the Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau has reduced the backlog of pending broadcast indecency complaints by 70% (more than one million complaints), principally by closing pending complaints that were beyond the statute of limitations or too stale to pursue, that involved cases outside FCC jurisdiction, that contained insufficient information, or that were foreclosed by settled precedent. The Bureau is also actively investigating egregious indecency cases and will continue to do so. The FCC now seeks comment on whether the full Commission should make changes to its current broadcast indecency policies or maintain them as they are.

For example, should the Commission treat isolated expletives in a manner consistent with its decision in Pacifica (1987) (“If a complaint focuses solely on the use of expletives, we believe that . . . deliberate and repetitive use in a patently offensive manner is a requisite to a finding of indecency.”)? Should the Commission instead maintain the approach to isolated expletives set forth in its decision in Complaints Against Various Broadcast Licensees Regarding Their Airing of the “Golden Globe Awards” Program (2004)? Should the Commission treat isolated (non-sexual) nudity the same as or differently than isolated expletives? Commenters are invited to address these issues as well as any other aspect of the Commission’s substantive indecency policies.

For purposes of this proceeding, we are establishing a new docket, GN Docket No. 13-86. All comments should refer to GN Docket No. 13-86.

Emergency-service providers and other organizations are being targeted with telephony denial of service (TDoS) attacks, according to a security alert from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI obtained by security expert Brian Krebs.

TDoS attacks use high volumes of automated calls to tie up target phone systems, halting incoming and outgoing calls. "Dozens of such attacks have targeted the administrative PSAP [public safety answering point] lines (not the 911 emergency line)," according to the alert. "It is speculated that government offices/emergency services are being 'targeted' because of the necessity of functional phone lines." Emergency service providers aren't the only organizations being targeted: "Many similar attacks have occurred targeting various businesses and public entities, including the financial sector and other public emergency operations interests, including air ambulance, ambulance and hospital communications."

Alma Whitten, Google‘s first director of privacy, is stepping down from her post with plans to retire.

She’s remaining for a couple of months while the privacy team transitions to new leadership. Whitten, who has been overseeing privacy at Google from the company’s London office, will be replaced by Lawrence You, an engineer who has been with the company for eight years, and, importantly, is based in Mountain View, where much of the privacy-violating magic happens. It’s certainly much closer to the Google X Lab, from whence new technologies such as Glass and driverless cars are coming, presenting novel privacy implications for review. You has been working with Whitten and the privacy team, notably when the team oversaw the uniting of Google’s 70+ privacy policies into one (which caused the Internet to freak out). You will be taking over a privacy and security team that includes several hundred people.