Google

Google announces privacy changes, users can’t opt out

by certifiedbug on January 25, 2012

in News

Updating our privacy policies and terms of service
1/24/2012 01:30:00 PM
In just over a month we will make some changes to our privacy policies and Google Terms of Service. This stuff matters, so we wanted to explain what’s changing, why and what these changes mean for users.

First, our privacy policies. Despite trimming our policies in 2010, we still have more than 70 (yes, you read right … 70) privacy documents covering all of our different products. This approach is somewhat complicated. It’s also at odds with our efforts to integrate our different products more closely so that we can create a beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google.

So we’re rolling out a new main privacy policy that covers the majority of our products and explains what information we collect, and how we use it, in a much more readable way. While we’ve had to keep a handful of separate privacy notices for legal and other reasons, we’re consolidating more than 60 into our main Privacy Policy.

Regulators globally have been calling for shorter, simpler privacy policies—and having one policy covering many different products is now fairly standard across the web.

These changes will take effect on March 1, and we’re starting to notify users today, including via email and a notice on our homepage.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/updating-our-privacy-policies-and-terms.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/google-privacy-policies_n_1229470.html

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Internet Explorer 6 Countdown

by certifiedbug on January 4, 2012

in Browser

ie6countdown

10 years ago a browser was born.

Its name was Internet Explorer 6. Now that we’re in 2012, in an era of modern web standards, it’s time to say goodbye.

http://www.ie6countdown.com/

BBC News

Meanwhile rival Google has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown on the promotion of its Chrome browser.

It has downgraded Chrome in its search listings after the discovery that a marketing campaign paid bloggers to promote a video about it.

The search giant has distanced itself from the campaign, blaming third-party marketing firm Essence Digital.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16408850

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Bogus Google Plus Page Trashes Bank of America

by certifiedbug on November 15, 2011

in News

Posts contain swipes relating to the Occupy Wall Street movement and government bailouts.

Now replaced with the “verified name” check mark.

http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/bank-of-americas-google-plus-page-appears-brandjacked.php

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DigiNotar SSL Certificate Hack

by certifiedbug on September 1, 2011

in Internet Security

Microsoft Security Advisory (2607712)
Fraudulent Digital Certificates Could Allow Spoofing
Published: August 29, 2011 | Updated: August 29, 2011

Microsoft is aware of at least one fraudulent digital certificate issued by DigiNotar, a certification authority present in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities Store, on all supported releases of Microsoft Windows. Although this is not a vulnerability in a Microsoft product, Microsoft is taking action to protect customers.

Microsoft has been able to confirm that one digital certificate affects all subdomains of google.com and may be used to spoof content, perform phishing attacks, or perform man-in-the-middle attacks against all Web browser users including users of Internet Explorer. Microsoft is continuing to investigate how many more certificates have been fraudulently issued. As a precautionary measure, Microsoft has removed the DigiNotar root certificate from the Microsoft Certificate Trust List.

All supported editions of Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2 use the Microsoft Certificate Trust List to validate the trust of a certification authority. Users of these operating systems will be presented with an invalid certificate error when they browse to a Web site or try to install programs signed by the DigiNotar root certificate. In those cases users should follow the instructions in the message. Microsoft will release a future update to address this issue for all supported editions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

Microsoft is continuing to investigate this issue and may release future updates to help protect customers.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/2607712.mspx

Edit
V3.0 (September 6, 2011): Revised to announce the release of an update that addresses this issue.

Computerworld

Hackers may have obtained more than 200 digital certificates from a Dutch company after breaking into its network, including ones for Mozilla, Yahoo and the Tor project, a security researcher reported today.

The count is considerably higher than DigiNotar has acknowledged. Earlier this week, a company spokesman said that “several dozen” certificates had been acquired by the attackers.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9219663/Hackers_may_have_stolen_over_200_SSL_certificates

Mac OS X can’t properly revoke dodgy digital certificates
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9219669/Mac_OS_X_can_t_properly_revoke_dodgy_digital_certificates

Firefox and Thunderbird 6.0.1 released after the Mozilla team removed DigiNotar from their root program to protect users.


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Google warns users of malware

July 20, 2011

Google Online Security Blog Posted by Damian Menscher, Security Engineer As we work to protect our users and their information, we sometimes discover unusual patterns of activity. Recently, we found some unusual search traffic while performing routine maintenance on one of our data centers. After collaborating with security engineers at several companies that were sending [...]

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French Commission fines Google $142,000

March 21, 2011

Street View Privacy Violations. Google’s infractions included collecting passwords and e- mails transferred wirelessly, the National Commission for Computing and Civil Liberties said today in a statement. CNIL, as the regulator is known, levied its highest fine ever because of the gravity of breaches and “the economic advantages Google gained from these violations,” according to [...]

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Google is your friend-or is it

October 25, 2010

cnet.co.uk The Information Commissioner’s Office is investigating Google Street View after the search giant admitted it had collected more personal data than previously thought. Google senior vice president Alan Eustace has owned up to having collected complete email addresses, URLs and passwords that could identify users. http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/ico-vs-street-view-round-2-as-google-admits-to-collecting-passwords-50001271/ Creating stronger privacy controls inside Google: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/creating-stronger-privacy-controls.html

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GAN preferred placements, format, and terms in sponsored search

September 29, 2010

Tying Google Affiliate Network September 28, 2010 In one of the few areas of Internet advertising where Google is not dominant – where just three years ago Google had no offering at all – Google now uses tying to climb towards a position of dominance. In particular, using its control over web search, Google offers [...]

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Google redirecting Chinese users to uncensored version of its search engine

March 22, 2010

Interesting development. 3/22/2010 On January 12, we announced on this blog that Google and more than twenty other U.S. companies had been the victims of a sophisticated cyber attack originating from China, and that during our investigation into these attacks we had uncovered evidence to suggest that the Gmail accounts of dozens of human rights [...]

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China activist: Google Gives Us Hope

February 10, 2010

Ai Weiwei Most discouraging to those of us who are fighting for increased freedom is the tendency for developed nations to lower the bar to please China. They make excuses not to concern themselves with violations of human rights. To espouse universal values and then blind oneself to China’s active hostility to those values is [...]

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