We'll start, as we always like to, with some Good News, but this time it's a case of Good News being wrapped inside some Not Good News.The Not Good News involves a long-running class action lawsuit against Google and two media firms, who were accused of circumventing cookie-blocking technologies in web browsers, thus enabling the sites to track users' web histories.
In a significant loss for online privacy, on November 9 the Third Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit, saying that, contrary to the plaintiffs' claims that Google and the others had violated the Wiretap Act, they in fact hadn't because they were a "party" to the communications rather than a third-party eavesdropper.
Which I find a bizarre decision, since it's the internet equivalent of saying that because I visit a store to shop for something, that store can properly secretly follow me everywhere else I go to shop even if I've made it clear I want them to stop doing that. This, I have to say, is Not Good News.
Sources cited in links:
http://www.wired.com/2015/11/court-says-tracking-web-histories-can-violate-wiretap-act/
http://www.scribd.com/doc/289282594/Google-Cookie-Blocking-Circumvention-Appellate-Ruling
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