“Verifying Google’s data snare is crucial to assessing a penalty and assuring no repeat. Consumers and businesses expect and deserve a full explanation, as well as measures shielding them from future spying. We will scrupulously safeguard the confidentiality of information we review.

“We will fight to compel Google to come clean–granting my office access to improperly collected materials and protecting confidentiality, as the company has done in Canada and elsewhere.”

– Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal Dec. 10, 2010

Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen has reassessed the need to review the consumer data inadvertently harvested by Google’s Street View cars and determined that it’s not quite as crucial as his predecessor claimed.

Jepsen said Friday that his office will enter into settlement negotiations with the company without reviewing the pilfered data, which Google has steadfastly refused to share with it. Under the terms of the deal between the two, Connecticut will drop the civil investigative demand it was using to force Google to produce the data at issue here, and Google will stipulate to collecting and storing it. It will also stipulate that the data collected included confidential and private information like “partial or complete e-mail communications.”

“This is a good result for the people of Connecticut,” Jepsen said in a statement. “The stipulation means we can proceed to negotiate a settlement of the critical privacy issues implicated here without the need for a protracted and costly fight in the courts, although we are ready to do so if we are unable to come to a satisfactory agreement through negotiation.”

PREVIOUSLY

• Well, Hell, If I Knew All I Had to Do Was Seize the Hard Drives…
• Look, Sergey, a Christmas Card From the Connecticut AG! Wait…
• Google Street View Privacy Debacle Far From Over
• FTC Closes Google Street View Probe
• Google CEO Apologizes for Street View Schmidtstorm
• Google CEO’s Advice to the Street-View Shy: The Video
• Schmidt: Don’t Like Google Street View Photographing Your House? Then Move.
• Mr. Schmidt, There’s an Inspector Lestrade on Line One
• State AGs to Probe Google’s “Deeply Disturbing Invasion” of Wi-Fi Data
• No Harm, Big Foul: Google Intercepted Passwords and Email Extracts
• Germany Questions Google’s Data “Mistake”
• Google Street View Cars Collected Wi-Fi User Data for Three Years

According to South Korea’s Cyber Terror Response Center, the hard drives it seized from Google’s Seoul office last August contained a smorgasbord of consumer data. “We unlocked 79 computer hard disks seized from Google Korea last summer and discovered e-mails, instant messages and other private data sent over Wi-Fi networks,” Response Center official Jung Suk-hwa told the Korea Times. “We are now working on an additional 145 hard drives, which were handed over to us later. These disks had previously been taken out of the country.”

But whether those drives hold similar information or not, it’s already clear that Google violated South Korea’s law protecting telecommunications privacy. That said, it’s not immediately clear if the company will face a penalty for that. “We are looking to penalize whoever ordered and developed the program, but are unsure as of yet who that might be,” a police official told the Korea Herald. “Even after we confirm the identity of the suspect, we believe it will most likely be a U.S. citizen, and it is unclear whether the Korean Police Agency can prosecute those involved.”

An interesting remark, since Google has so far refused to identify the “rogue engineer” responsible for this whole Wi-Spy debacle. Perhaps if South Korea is able to do this, he or she can clarify things and confirm the veracity of Google’s explanation.

Google, for its part, trotted out yet another version of the same apologetic statement it’s issued in the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Britain….

“We are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted networks. As soon as we realised what had happened, we stopped collecting all Wi-Fi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities. We have been co-operating with the Korean Communications Commission and the police, and will continue to do so. Our ultimate objective remains to delete the data consistent with our legal obligations and in consultation with the appropriate authorities.”

PREVIOUSLY

• Look, Sergey, a Christmas Card From the Connecticut AG! Wait…
• Google Street View Privacy Debacle Far From Over
• FTC Closes Google Street View Probe
• Google CEO Apologizes for Street View Schmidtstorm
• Google CEO’s Advice to the Street-View Shy: The Video
• Schmidt: Don’t Like Google Street View Photographing Your House? Then Move.
• Mr. Schmidt, There’s an Inspector Lestrade on Line One
• State AGs to Probe Google’s “Deeply Disturbing Invasion” of Wi-Fi Data
• No Harm, Big Foul: Google Intercepted Passwords and Email Extracts
• Germany Questions Google’s Data “Mistake”
• Google Street View Cars Collected Wi-Fi User Data for Three Years

The latest to be arrested is Winifred Jiau, 43, of Fremont, Calif. Like others charged or arrested on Dec. 16, she has ties to Primary Global Research. She’s accused of providing inside information to Primary Global clients who were portfolio managers at hedge funds of Nvidia and Marvell Technology during a period from 2006 to 2008. Prosecutors say she collected $200,000 during that time. She’s facing charges of conspiracy and securities fraud.

In August of 2008, the complaint says, she provided managers of two hedge funds with detailed numbers for quarterly revenues, per-share earnings and gross margins for the quarter ending that month. The complaint says that in the conversations she made it clear she had obtained the information directly from an employee of Marvell. The funds in question–they were not named in the complaint–allegedly made $820,000 on trades from the information.

On Aug. 8, 2008, the complaint says, Jiau provided the hedge fund managers with an early look at Nvidia’s quarterly revenue and told them it planned to announce a stock buyback, which it did four days later.

I’ve embedded the complaint below.

Jiau, Winifred Complaint

“We need to verify what confidential information the company surreptitiously and wrongfully collected and stored,” Blumenthal said in a statement, adding that doing so is “crucial to assessing a penalty and assuring no repeat.”

Though Google has already shared some of the data with other regulatory authorities, it evidently sees little need for such verification and clearly has no intention of handing any data over to Blumenthal’s office.

“As we have said before, we are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted networks,” the company said in a statement rehashing the endless string of similar statements that preceded it. “As soon as we realized what had happened, we stopped collecting all WiFi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities. We did not want and have never used the payload data in any of our products and services. We want to delete this data as soon as possible and will continue to work with the authorities to determine the best way forward, as well as to answer their further questions and concerns.”

Google has until Dec. 17 to give Blumenthal’s office access to the data. Or else…

PREVIOUSLY

• Google Street View Privacy Debacle Far From Over
• FTC Closes Google Street View Probe
• Google CEO Apologizes for Street View Schmidtstorm
• Google CEO’s Advice to the Street-View Shy: The Video
• Schmidt: Don’t Like Google Street View Photographing Your House? Then Move.
• Mr. Schmidt, There’s an Inspector Lestrade on Line One
• State AGs to Probe Google’s “Deeply Disturbing Invasion” of Wi-Fi Data
• No Harm, Big Foul: Google Intercepted Passwords and Email Extracts
• Germany Questions Google’s Data “Mistake”
• Google Street View Cars Collected Wi-Fi User Data for Three Years

[Image credit: Someecards]

Wall Street analysts have been left bewildered in recent days, as federal prosecutors begin to home in on insider-trading cases that appear to involve routinely published information about public-company supply chains.

Case in point: Apple Inc., one of the hottest stocks of the past year, for which an entire industry of well-known and obscure analysts and “expert networks” scramble to report every detail of the company’s undisclosed production plans.

The proliferation of such research raises questions about where prosecutors will draw the lines that define insider trading.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

In a letter to the House Oversight Committee, The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) called for further investigation of the breach, suggesting that the FTC may have let Google off easy because of the company’s close ties to the Obama administration.

“Like Halliburton in the previous administration, Google has an exceptionally close relationship with the current administration,” the letter says, noting former Googler Andrew McLaughlin’s new gig as U.S. deputy chief technology officer and President Obama’s recent appearance at a Democratic fundraiser held by Google exec Marissa Mayer. “The FTC’s decision to close its investigation into Google’s unauthorized gathering of private data through its Google Street View program is troubling enough. But looked at in the context of this administration’s extraordinarily close relationship with Google, no fair-minded person could look at the record so far and not believe that further investigation is warranted.”

Maybe, maybe not. That Halliburton quip sure does sting though, given Google Senior Competition Counsel Dana Wagner’s infamous comments about the company last summer. “There are a lot of companies in which I wouldn’t do this job, right?” he said at the time. “I spent seven years in the government. I very much believe in the message and the mission of the Justice Department. I would not be doing this at Halliburton, right?…The sense that I get is that their corporate values may be a little different from Google’s, on some things.”

Incidentally, the NLPC may get its wish–Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) last week told C-SPAN he plans to investigate the Google Street View privacy breach if he becomes chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

PREVIOUSLY

• FTC Closes Google Street View Probe
• Google CEO Apologizes for Street View Schmidtstorm
• Google CEO’s Advice to the Street-View Shy: The Video
• Schmidt: Don’t Like Google Street View Photographing Your House? Then Move.
• Mr. Schmidt, There’s an Inspector Lestrade on Line One
• State AGs to Probe Google’s “Deeply Disturbing Invasion” of Wi-Fi Data
• No Harm, Big Foul: Google Intercepted Passwords and Email Extracts
• Germany Questions Google’s Data “Mistake”
• Google Street View Cars Collected Wi-Fi User Data for Three Years

The NLRB, an independent federal agency that settles disputes between private-sector employers and employees, said the supervisor questioned the employee about a customer complaint on her work but that the employer illegally denied her representation from her union during the probe. The employee later posted the negative remark about the supervisor on her personal Facebook page from her home computer.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

“…We note that Google has recently announced improvements to its internal processes to address some of the concerns raised above, including appointing a director of privacy for engineering and product management; adding core privacy training for key employees; and incorporating a formal privacy review process into the design phases of new initiatives,” David Vladeck, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a letter to Google’s attorney. “The company also publicly stated its intention to delete the inadvertently collected payload data as soon as possible. Further, Google has made assurances to the FTC that the company has not used and will not use any of the payload data collected in any Google product or service, now or in the future. This assurance is critical to mitigate the potential harm to consumers from the collection of payload data. Because of these commitments, we are ending our inquiry into this matter at this time.”

Looks like Google won’t face any fines for the incident in the U.S., though it’s still subject to investigations abroad.

PREVIOUSLY

• Google CEO Apologizes for Street View Schmidtstorm
• Google CEO’s Advice to the Street-View Shy: The Video
• Schmidt: Don’t Like Google Street View Photographing Your House? Then Move.
• Mr. Schmidt, There’s an Inspector Lestrade on Line One
• State AGs to Probe Google’s “Deeply Disturbing Invasion” of Wi-Fi Data
• No Harm, Big Foul: Google Intercepted Passwords and Email Extracts
• Germany Questions Google’s Data “Mistake”
• Google Street View Cars Collected Wi-Fi User Data for Three Years

“Recent reports indicate that Google’s Google Voice service restricts calling from consumers to certain rural communities,” the FCC wrote. “We are interested in gathering facts that can provide a more complete understanding of this situation.”

Though Google (GOOG) has until Oct. 28 to file a formal response, the search giant was quick to thump the tub in its defense on its Public Policy Blog. There, Rick Whitt, the company’s telecom and media counsel, argued again that Google Voice is not a traditional phone service and should not be regulated like one.

“Google Voice is not intended to be a replacement for traditional phone service–in fact, you need an existing land or wireless line in order to use it. Importantly, users are still able to make outbound calls on any other phone device,” Whitt wrote. “…AT&T apparently now wants web applications–from Skype to Google Voice–to be treated the same way as traditional phone services. Their approach is what a former FCC chairman has called ‘regulatory capitalism,’ the practice of using regulation to block or slow down innovation. And despite AT&T’s lobbying efforts, this issue has nothing to do with network neutrality or rural America. This is about outdated carrier compensation rules that are fundamentally broken and in need of repair by the FCC.”

“Recent reports indicate that Google’s Google Voice service restricts calling from consumers to certain rural communities,” the FCC wrote. “We are interested in gathering facts that can provide a more complete understanding of this situation.”

Though Google (GOOG) has until Oct. 28 to file a formal response, the search giant was quick to thump the tub in its defense on its Public Policy Blog. There, Rick Whitt, the company’s telecom and media counsel, argued again that Google Voice is not a traditional phone service and should not be regulated like one.

“Google Voice is not intended to be a replacement for traditional phone service–in fact, you need an existing land or wireless line in order to use it. Importantly, users are still able to make outbound calls on any other phone device,” Whitt wrote. “…AT&T apparently now wants web applications–from Skype to Google Voice–to be treated the same way as traditional phone services. Their approach is what a former FCC chairman has called ‘regulatory capitalism,’ the practice of using regulation to block or slow down innovation. And despite AT&T’s lobbying efforts, this issue has nothing to do with network neutrality or rural America. This is about outdated carrier compensation rules that are fundamentally broken and in need of repair by the FCC.”

People familiar with the matter tell Bloomberg that Apple’s handling of the matter remains under scrutiny and that company directors Art Levinson and Bill Campbell had been briefed by Jobs’s doctors on his medical condition at the time of the January disclosures, but little else.

Now, the path from “Steve is suffering from a common bug” to “a hormone imbalance has been robbing Steve of the proteins his body needs to be healthy” to “Steve has undergone a liver transplant” is obviously something of an eyebrow-raiser. But whether it was material to Apple’s business and therefore required disclosure isn’t clear. After all, Apple (AAPL) did just fine while Jobs was on sabbatical; the debut of new Macs, iPods and iPhones is testament to that. Beyond that, there’s this: Apple’s stock posted a 59 percent gain while he was away.

“The issue is not going to be whether they needed to disclose the medical records,” James Cox, a securities law professor at Duke University, told Bloomberg. “It’s going to be whether they monitored the disclosures about his health, in relation to investor expectations that Apple would continue to be led by Steven Jobs….[Apple] did fine. Do you need to say more than, ‘Our CEO has health problems and he’s out on leave?’ The question I think the SEC is looking at is whether it’s material.”

People familiar with the matter tell Bloomberg that Apple’s handling of the matter remains under scrutiny and that company directors Art Levinson and Bill Campbell had been briefed by Jobs’s doctors on his medical condition at the time of the January disclosures, but little else.

Now, the path from “Steve is suffering from a common bug” to “a hormone imbalance has been robbing Steve of the proteins his body needs to be healthy” to “Steve has undergone a liver transplant” is obviously something of an eyebrow-raiser. But whether it was material to Apple’s business and therefore required disclosure isn’t clear. After all, Apple (AAPL) did just fine while Jobs was on sabbatical; the debut of new Macs, iPods and iPhones is testament to that. Beyond that, there’s this: Apple’s stock posted a 59 percent gain while he was away.

“The issue is not going to be whether they needed to disclose the medical records,” James Cox, a securities law professor at Duke University, told Bloomberg. “It’s going to be whether they monitored the disclosures about his health, in relation to investor expectations that Apple would continue to be led by Steven Jobs….[Apple] did fine. Do you need to say more than, ‘Our CEO has health problems and he’s out on leave?’ The question I think the SEC is looking at is whether it’s material.”

The Justice Department probe of the Google Books settlement is heating up. On Thursday afternoon, the agency officially opened an investigation into the deal, which would allow the search sovereign to make millions of books available online.

“The United States has reviewed public comments expressing concern that aspects of the settlement agreement may violate the Sherman Act,” wrote William F. Cavanaugh, a deputy assistant attorney general. “At this preliminary stage, the United States has reached no conclusions as to the merit of those concerns or more broadly what impact this settlement may have on competition. However, we have determined that the issues raised by the proposed settlement warrant further inquiry.”

The move is the strongest sign yet that the DOJ may block the settlement, which critics claim would grant Google (GOOG) a monopoly on orphaned works–copyrighted texts without an identifiable copyright holder. The notification, included below, is the first time the DOJ has confirmed the investigation publicly and said that it is indeed looking at possible violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Odd that the letter was filed this week inasmuch as the “fairness hearing” that will determine whether final approval is given to the settlement is still months away. Clearly, Google’s recent public relations offensive claiming the company is just as vulnerable to competition as anyone else hasn’t had much effect.

Reached for comment, Google spokesperson Gabriel Stricker offered the following statement:

“The Department of Justice and several state attorneys general have contacted us to learn more about the impact of the settlement, and we are happy to answer their questions.

It’s important to note that this agreement is non-exclusive and if approved by the court, stands to expand access to millions of books in the U.S.”

2009.07.02 Order _ DOJ Letter –

Last night, Walt Mossberg and I hosted yet another annual “What’s Hot and What’s Not in Personal Technology” event for the Churchill Club.

A brief rundown of the Palo Alto gadgetfest show-and-tell: An animatronic singing Elvis freaked out my No. 1 son, Louie, who played an excellent Luke Skywalker/gadget boy for my presentation; our guest gadget geek was Twitter Co-Founder and CEO Evan Williams, who was a delight with a mini-helicopter, a flat-screen reader and a wry wit; Walt showed off the new Blackberry Storm from RIM (RIMM), the alleged Apple (AAPL) iPhone killer (maybe not so much), as well as a fuel cell and more; and our crazy gadget maven, Greg Harper, co-founder of Gadgetoff, went perfectly insane with everything from tiny projectors to a creepy probe to minicellphone towers to USB ties and eyepads.

It was a lot of fun with a packed crowd, even in this econalypse-impacting Silicon Valley.

Here is a rather longish video, which is well worth watching. Yes, BoomTown is–along with Louie and Elvis–wearing a Yahoo (YHOO) hat.

Here’s the video:

[Photo courtesy of Dan Farber of CNET.]