Comments for Privacy Research Group - NYU

Comment on A Case of Cut-and-Paste: The New Uniform Data Protection Rules Proposal in the EU by European Parliament Committee On Industry, Research And Energy Publish … » Cyber Crimes Unit | Cyber Crimes Unit

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 18:39:19 +0000

[...] Committee’s Draft Opinion has also been criticised on the basis that it was in some cases a wholesale cut and paste of various lobbying provisions, so it will be interesting to see how the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs [...]

Comment on Google and Spain Wrestle over EU Privacy Law by Tom

Tom — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 01:56:25 +0000

Supposing the ECJ finds against Google, what scope is there to actually enforce the removal of the data given where they are based?

Comment on Differential Ad results returned by Google’s ‘Ad Sense’ by Sasha_Romanosky

Sasha_Romanosky — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 17:11:00 +0000

Fine, but we’re talking common carrier with regard to ad sense, not search.

And be held responsible for what, exactly? No one is being excluded from, or denied access to anything.

But even if so, how would you “solve” the alleged contribution to racial bias? No longer allow bidding on ads for names? This seems like a heavy handed intervention with a very slippery slope.

Comment on Differential Ad results returned by Google’s ‘Ad Sense’ by Nathan Newman

Nathan Newman — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 16:51:03 +0000

But Google is not a common carrier– as they argue vehemently in every discussion of their responsibility for search bias. They claim their algorithm is an editorial function protected by free speech. Now, that may be debatable, but what’s clear is that all publications accepting advertising can be held responsible for accepting ads that exclude people from hiring or housing based on their race or other characteristics.

To the extent that decisions in the algorithm design have disparate racial effects, when an alternative design would not, then a search engine should be held responsible. Saying that the result just reflects bias in other users and the resulting racism is not the responsibility of the designer of the algorithm harnessing that bias seems too easy an out indeed. We have long established that accommodating the bias of customers is not allowed under the law; restaurants used to exclude black people on the basis that they were just reflecting the bias of their white customers but that was eliminated under the law.

Comment on When is price discrimination from consumer data okay? by Sasha_Romanosky

Sasha_Romanosky — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 23:49:14 +0000

Solon pointed me to a recent article on this same topic by Arvind Narayanan. Very interesting!

http://33bits.org/2013/01/08/online-price-discrimination-conspicuous-by-its-absence/

Comment on When is price discrimination from consumer data okay? by Sasha_Romanosky

Sasha_Romanosky — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 22:15:13 +0000

As a followup, a recent WSJ article nicely enumerates ways in which other retailers engage in this price discrimination. http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887323777204578189391813881534-lMyQjAxMTAyMDIwNDEyNDQyWj.html#

Comment on Secretly Installed Software on Rented Computers Collected Information, Took Pictures of Consumers in Their Homes, Tracked Consumers’ Locations by hpatterson

hpatterson — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 19:22:44 +0000

CDT published a nice blog post about this today:

https://www.cdt.org/blogs/gs-hans/0910laptop-spying-case-indicates-more-aggressive-ftc-stance-privacy

Comment on California Agreement with Amazon by Joseph Lorenzo Hall

Joseph Lorenzo Hall — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:24:10 +0000

I found it interesting how in the first para of the agreement it specifically disclaims any intent to make binding legal commitments and such. Which means, what exactly is this agreement? Sounds like a statement of principles that they hope to abide by, but don’t have to.

Comment on Rear-view cameras to be required by 2014 by Joseph Lorenzo Hall

Joseph Lorenzo Hall — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:22:31 +0000

Makes me wonder if the standard disorientation involved with seeing things backwards might make this less safe!

Comment on TPM – Feds To Monitor Google’s Privacy Practices For Next 20 Years by “Gchat is a place where sanity goes to die” « "Hell is Empty and the Devils are Here"

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 23:16:09 +0000

[...] post!] – but let’s just say that the Federal Trade Commission will now be monitoring both Google and Facebook’s privacy practices for the next 20 [...]