By Anna Salem, ACLU of Northern California at 3:24pm
In the digital age that we live in today, we are constantly exposing our personal information online. From using cell phones and GPS devices to online shopping and sending e-mail, the things we do and say online leave behind ever-growing trails of personal information. The ACLU believes that Americans shouldn’t have to choose between using new technology and keeping control of your private information. Each week, we feature some of the most interesting news related to technology and civil liberties that we’ve spotted from the previous week.
The ACLU, along with EFF and the Samuelson Clinic, have been working to ensure that Google Book Search does not become a one-stop shop for government surveillance into the reading habits of millions of Americans and pushing for robust privacy and free speech safeguards to be included in the settlement provisions.
By Nicole Ozer, Technology & Civil Liberties Policy Director, ACLU of Northern California at 3:16pm
The ACLU submitted a statement to the House Judiciary Committee for yesterday's hearing on Google Book Search:
The failure of the Settlement to include protections for book records and limitations on data collection, retention, use, and disclosure should be of great concern to this Committee, particularly given the tremendous breadth of the Google Book Search services that will emerge from the Settlement and the likely impact they will have on future authors, readers, libraries, the book market, and broader competition in the online services market.
A coalition of authors and publishers, represented by the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California Berkeley School of Law, filed an objection this morning in the Google Book Search case. The objection urges the federal judge to reject the proposed settlement because it lacks critical privacy rights for readers and writers.
By Nicole Ozer, Technology & Civil Liberties Policy Director, ACLU of Northern California at 8:15pm
Late yesterday afternoon, September 3, 2009, Google finally issued a privacy policy for Google Books, both the current service and the extensive new book-related services they hope to have a federal court approve in October.
While there are some good things in the policy many that the ACLU of Northern California and its coalition partners the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California Berkeley Law School have long been urging Google to do, it is still falls well short of the privacy protections that readers need, both substantively and in whether it will be permanent and readily enforceable by readers. Our coalition on behalf of authors and publishers seeking to protect reader privacy will still be filing an Objection to the Settlement in Court on Tuesday, September 8.
