"A former Google engineer has built a search engine, webXray, that aims to find illicit online data collection and tracking—with the goal of becoming 'the Henry Ford of tech lawsuits.'
[…] On Wednesday, Libert plans to launch the website to the public, so anyone can get a sense of how sprawling the web of privacy violations being made every day really is, along with a premium tier for regulators and attorneys, who can use the tool to assess those violations and address them. Libert knows a thing or two about both search engines and digital privacy. Until last year, he was a staff engineer on the privacy team at Google, which is of course the operator of the largest search engine in the world—and the largest collector of data of the billions of people who use it."
#Privacy#GDPR#dataprotection#Google#webXray
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EDPO (European Data Protection Office) your own website evidence collector and web audit tools are De Jure - a plucky defendant in infringement legal proceedings will weaponise the lack of credentials with commercial scanning tech.
Please don’t promote it.
From Google Cookie Engineer to Creating a Search Engine that Exposes Privacy Violations 🤖💥
A former Google engineer has built a search engine "that aims to find illicit online data collection and tracking."
webXray.ai's aim is to create a "factory assembly line" of class action lawsuits against big tech companies.
Fascinating detail also in this piece on Dr. Timothy Libert's experience as a an engineer in Google's privacy team, focused specifically on cookies:
"Google is deprioritising privacy at the very moment when users are calling for stronger policies."
Via WIRED, by Brian Merchant.
It is known that in specific #industries (such as #FinTech or #medicine), there are #strict#regulations that governments and relevant #authorities have set to ensure any #confidential and #PII#data remains private, as it should be.
Furthermore, #privacy is one of the #HumanRights described in the #UnitedNations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Article 12.
I decided to step forward and start to de-Google my life because it's well known that #Google is one of the primary actors without privacy (the first line in their #PrivacyPolicy reads as "When you use our services, you're trusting us with your information.") and any brand-washing attempts won't solve the problem.
There are open questions about the #YouTube#adblockers detection and its legitimacy in the #EU, other cases where Google accepted and paid millionaire fines to prevent going to trial, and many other cases where Google has intentionally broken the existing #EU#GDPR and #CCPA privacy laws.
Thus, I have moved my email, calendar and cloud storage services to Proton | Privacy by Default. This service provider has excellent products and can compete with giants like #Google, but that is much more #privacyfriendly due to the stringent #Switzerland#Privacy#Laws.
My search engine changed (a long time ago) from #Google to DuckDuckGo; on my phone, I no longer use #GoogleMaps and have decided to export all my backed-up pictures from #GooglePhotos to start using other ways to keep them secure and away from this anti-privacy PII data consumer.
And you... are you willing to keep your private data to yourself? Or do you want to keep feeding the most profitable advertising company worldwide by giving them all your data for free?
Google to Delete "Incognito" Browsing Data in Lawsuit Settlement
Google has agreed to delete millions of records collected during users’ “Incognito” browsing mode. The settlement emphasizes transparency, clarifying data collection practices and allowing users to block third-party cookies. No monetary payment is involved, but individuals can pursue damages separately.
So in 2020, Google faced a $5 billion lawsuit alleging violations of federal wiretapping and California privacy laws. The lawsuit claimed that Google misled users by collecting data while they were in “Incognito” mode.
Privacy challenges persist, as seen with Facebook’s 2016 data scandal involving Cambridge Analytica. Protecting internet privacy relies on government policies and ethical practices
Unfortunately, individual control is limited. Government policies and company ethics play a crucial role in safeguarding our privacy.
Privacy Is Not an Option; It’s Essential
Follow Aman Lohiya for more insights
Read more at:
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🕵️♂️🔍 A former Google engineer has developed webXray, a search engine exposing illicit online data collection and tracking. Aiming to become the "Henry Ford of tech lawsuits," this tool highlights privacy violations by major tech companies.
#Privacy#TechEthics#webXray
Anyone know why Alphabet Inc. reversed itself on its previous decision to permanently retire cookies from Google's Chrome?
Per my humble estimation and assessment, this marks a significant shift away from America's seeming "ready & organic" capitulation to the GDPR's European privacy paradigm in favor of what amounts to [kindly avert your eyes {and minds} while minimizing your blindspots for this single *invocation* of Occam's Razor]: the RealPolitik of America's upcoming election cycle has such a depth of partisan mischief-making that, just as @Elon is explicitly supporting #Trumpy, and his legal/political/cultural campaigns, and just as 70+ million loyalists, Chrome's parent companies have simply calculated that based on the totality of outcomes of the 2024 election cycle, they'll have minimal technopolitical pushback unless the consumer makes a fuss about increased privacy expectation -- despite the mostly American consumer being conditioned to trade their privacy and bulk trust in exchange for the social trap of increased convenience.
Yet, there might be something more insidious in the offing: namely that the increased presence of Chinese tech firms in the American market require cookies for competition w/ Chinese cookie/tracking technology.
And just as Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri were passively aware of what was being said by the end user and their social company ambiently, but both Mag 7 companies have opted for a chatbot lifestyle and temperament, Alphabet could simply have decided to "unretire" cookies with the blessing of both political parties... given some effective lobbying and some consistent campaign contributions to secure industry competitiveness💡.
Author | Keynote Speaker | Board Member | Associate Professor working on AI Ethics at the University of Oxford
"Privacy is inevitable" People want #privacy. Democracy needs privacy. Privacy laws are getting better. Big tech is still engaging in large scale privacy violations. Enforcement needs to do some catching up. Tools like WebXray can help. Check it out.
WebXray is "a search engine for rooting out specific privacy violations anywhere on the web. By searching for a specific term or website, you can use WebXray to see which sites are tracking you, and where all that data goes. Its mission, Libert says, is simple; “I want to give privacy enforcers equal technology as privacy violators.” To level the playing field."
"Dr. Timothy Libert estimates that every day, there are likely trillions of illicitly transmitted cookies on the web."
"Part of the problem is that massive companies like #Microsoft, #Meta, and #Google may find it easier and more cost effective to ignore potential privacy violations than proactively work to address them, and just eat the occasional fine when those alleged violations are discovered instead."
Yeah, I wanna be the Henry Ford of tech lawsuits—turn this into a factory assembly line.”
"To Libert, it seems that Google is deprioritizing privacy at the very moment when users are calling for stronger policies."
https://lnkd.in/ehfFyw2G
Entrepreneur. CEO. Digital Visionary. Cloud Enthusiast. Customer Obsessed. Operationally Excellent. Billion Dollar P&L Leader. Bias for Action. Passionate about Diversity, Inclusion and Equity. Love life.
Author | Keynote Speaker | Board Member | Associate Professor working on AI Ethics at the University of Oxford
"Privacy is inevitable" People want #privacy. Democracy needs privacy. Privacy laws are getting better. Big tech is still engaging in large scale privacy violations. Enforcement needs to do some catching up. Tools like WebXray can help. Check it out.
WebXray is "a search engine for rooting out specific privacy violations anywhere on the web. By searching for a specific term or website, you can use WebXray to see which sites are tracking you, and where all that data goes. Its mission, Libert says, is simple; “I want to give privacy enforcers equal technology as privacy violators.” To level the playing field."
"Dr. Timothy Libert estimates that every day, there are likely trillions of illicitly transmitted cookies on the web."
"Part of the problem is that massive companies like #Microsoft, #Meta, and #Google may find it easier and more cost effective to ignore potential privacy violations than proactively work to address them, and just eat the occasional fine when those alleged violations are discovered instead."
Yeah, I wanna be the Henry Ford of tech lawsuits—turn this into a factory assembly line.”
"To Libert, it seems that Google is deprioritizing privacy at the very moment when users are calling for stronger policies."
https://lnkd.in/ehfFyw2G
#KnowNothingCISO Disclaimer Applies
PRIVACY IS INEVITABLE, IF ALL HUMANS NEED IT.
Fractal thoughts triggered by Carissa Véliz post on privacy.
I want to applaud the work Dr. Timothy Libert is doing. For more than a decade I have been saying and writing, Privacy is a Paradox. Is Privacy a Technology Problem, That can be solved Technocratically?
I will not go into the difference between humans needs and wants. Human want is a desire. I will not go deep into René Girard’s mimetic desire, and his conclusion that desire driven by imitation is society's biggest rat race. Girard argued that this human mimetic desire is all that matters: he said all humans are imitation machines, he said; our desires are mimetic. If this is true, then it creates a huge problem for privacy lovers and also a big opportunity to make an “infinite money machine” for big tech. They are not done, they are just getting started.
When Carrisa says “People want Privacy” my thoughts go a little deeper into the rabbit hole.. Do all humans, everywhere want Privacy? Or is it some humans in some places want privacy? This question goes deep into the fundamental human nature, Human condition and human behavior ever since we became homo sapiens.. Is this question all humans desire privacy even valid?
We all are aware that doing drugs is bad, but why is illegal drug a flourishing industry? If you have watched the Hulu web series Dopesick you will understand the deeper problems involved here. Is digital technology an addicting Drug? If Digital Technology is indeed a Addicting Drug, the Drug makers (Big Tech) are doing a wonderful job in getting our children addicted to this very early.
Richard Sackler’s of Purdue Pharma, do exist in the world of Digital Technology.
Which is why I am calling Privacy a Paradox.. on one side we desire for the digital drug, but on the other side we are aware that it is bad, but can we really get away from this, when it is freely available (atleast opioids cost money).
The internet with HTTP and HTML and cookies with its current design is inherently designed for these kinds of abuses by Big Tech.
Will there come a time when all humans realize that human privacy is a NEED and not a WANT? But then will it be too late?
I strongly believe that privacy is public spaces (like internet) is not possible and we privacy loving humans should fight for privacy in our private spaces (inside our homes), but that dream also seems to be fading away with Internet of Things and faster and faster connectivity like 5G .
Two years ago at the Indentiverse conference key note panel, I said a privacy preserving self sovereign identity can be a possible solution. (me and my organization has a approved patent on this).
Now when you add I want security also then privacy paradox becomes more interesting.
Was Buddha right, when he declared #desire and #ignorance lie at the root of all human suffering? Girard just expanded human desire is #memetic!
Raman PK
Author | Keynote Speaker | Board Member | Associate Professor working on AI Ethics at the University of Oxford
"Privacy is inevitable" People want #privacy. Democracy needs privacy. Privacy laws are getting better. Big tech is still engaging in large scale privacy violations. Enforcement needs to do some catching up. Tools like WebXray can help. Check it out.
WebXray is "a search engine for rooting out specific privacy violations anywhere on the web. By searching for a specific term or website, you can use WebXray to see which sites are tracking you, and where all that data goes. Its mission, Libert says, is simple; “I want to give privacy enforcers equal technology as privacy violators.” To level the playing field."
"Dr. Timothy Libert estimates that every day, there are likely trillions of illicitly transmitted cookies on the web."
"Part of the problem is that massive companies like #Microsoft, #Meta, and #Google may find it easier and more cost effective to ignore potential privacy violations than proactively work to address them, and just eat the occasional fine when those alleged violations are discovered instead."
Yeah, I wanna be the Henry Ford of tech lawsuits—turn this into a factory assembly line.”
"To Libert, it seems that Google is deprioritizing privacy at the very moment when users are calling for stronger policies."
https://lnkd.in/ehfFyw2G
Google Settlement: Incognito Browsing Lawsuit Resolved with Data Privacy Measures.
Google recently reached a significant milestone by settling a class-action lawsuit centered around incognito browsing data collection. This development has far-reaching implications for digital privacy and the SEO landscape.
As part of the settlement, Google will update its disclosures to provide transparent explanations about the collection of private browsing data. This includes revising its Privacy Policy and Incognito Splash Screen to offer clearer insights into data collection practices.
For More Details: Aiviewopinion.com#GoogleSettlement#IncognitoLawsuit#DataPrivacy#DigitalPrivacy#TechLegal#SEOImplications#Aiviewopinion#PrivacyRights#InternetPrivacy#UserTrust#TechEthics#Google#Privacy
Concerned by reports alleging Google's tracking of online activities even in 'private' browsing. The lawsuit's potential settlement raises questions about user privacy and data protection. Transparency and adherence to privacy policies are crucial in safeguarding user trust, user privacy must remain a priority in tech discourse.
https://lnkd.in/g3N9vFMV#Google#Privacy#DataProtection
Book-Keeper Tel 01740 669590 Bus Planning, Mngnt Accnts. Psnl - Data Privacy Advocate. UK fundraiser #stophateforprofit
1moEDPO (European Data Protection Office) your own website evidence collector and web audit tools are De Jure - a plucky defendant in infringement legal proceedings will weaponise the lack of credentials with commercial scanning tech. Please don’t promote it.