Roger Fingas
Clearing some of its legal plate, Google this week reached settlements for three different lawsuits, most notably a 2010 class action over illegal Wi-Fi data scooped up by Street View vehicles.
The company has agreed to pay $13 million to privacy advocacy groups, and destroy collected data, according to The Australian. While capturing Street View imagery, the vehicles simultaneously collected data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks such as emails and passwords. Had it not reached a settlement the company might have been fined billions of dollars.
The deal must still be approved by a San Francisco judge, Bloomberg noted.
Another $11 million settlement was agreed to for 227 people in a class action over ageist hiring practices. Silicon Valley is sometimes infamous for bias against hiring people over 40, whether because of a youth-focused culture or the worry that older people have too many commitments and salary demands.
Google's YouTube, lastly, has reportedly settled with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over accessing and sharing data from minors. Further details were not immediately available.
In recent years Google has tried to amend its reputation for violating privacy, even promoting efforts at its 2019 Google I/O conference. That may be possible because of a shift away from a purely ad-based model into hardware such as as its Pixel phones, though it continues to cope with the occasional scandal.
Malcolm Owen
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
17 Comments
13 million? Bwahaha.
I guess when you can afford it you can hack the world.
It seems like most of the Alphabet “moonshot projects” are being trimmed and the company is becoming a pure media, internet services and advertising surveillance company. I wonder how long the Pixel phone will survive and I don’t think Google’s heart is in it for the long haul. I do think they will need to shepherd the Android OS for the long term and that is what is important to them.
I wish these people followed the Joker's words - "It's not about the money, it's about sending a message".
The settlement amounts are ridiculous.