Carrier IQ Lawsuit Breaking News

Carrier IQ Lawsuit News – 1/25/2012 : In many countries, governments have discussed and proposed laws to regulate privacy protection and mechanisms to punish people and organizations that break the rules. Until privacy laws are really enforced, however, companies will find few incentives to protect and respect user privacy, mainly because most users don’t even realize that their privacy can be violated. A central problem is that behavior on the Web can’t be controlled. To regulate the Web, governments would have to regulate code writing or how Web applications (browsers, Java, e-mail systems, and so on ) function (Lessig, 1999). Also it is difficult to reach international consensus on Web privacy because the privacy concept is heavily dependent on widely variable cultural and political issues.

Later on U.S. government asked the Commerce Department to work with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to encourage organizations to implement self-regulatory practices. An FTC report in 2000, however concluded that U.S. self-regulatory approaches were ineffective in safeguarding consumer information, marketing techniques employed to profile customers were increasingly intrusive, and congressional legislative action was warranted to protect consumer privacy online (Electronic Privacy Information Center. The self-regulatory approach adopted by the U.S. is in direct contrast with the government-mandated approach adopted by the European Union (EU). Under the EU’s 1995, and subsequent 1997, Directive on Data Privacy, the burden is placed on companies and organizations—not individuals—to seek permission before using personal information for any purpose (Consumer International, 2003).

In July 2000, however, the United States negotiated a safe harbor agreement with the EU commission, wherein U.S. companies can voluntarily self-certify to adhere to a set of privacy principles loosely based on the fair information practices developed by the commerce department and the EU Commission. The primary difference under safe harbor is the ability of U.S. companies to administer self-enforcement by the European Commissioner or other agencies for compliance with the explicit rules of the EU directive (Consumer International, 2003). Although the United States recently passed new online privacy legislation, including the Childerns Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), Provisions in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Modernization Act (GLB) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), these laws are applicable to relatively narrow types of information and particular industry sectors (Turner & Dasgupta, 2003).

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The issue of who has control over personal data and how this data is used needs to be addressed at a global level in order for the Internet to develop into a trusted, widely acceptable international marketplace for the exchange of goods and services. The primary technology for collecting information on an individual’s activities over the Internet has been the Web “Cookie.” Cookies are digital information sent from a Web server and stored on the hard drive of an individual’s computer by the browser software or network application. Cookies were designed to address the problem of statelessness inherent in the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) (Kristol, 2002). Because a browser does not stay connected to a server, but instead makes a connec­tion, sends its request, downloads the response, and makes a new connection to send another request, it severely limited the functionality ofWeb services and complicated application development. Web cookies provide a solution to this statelessness by allowing for continuity in the interaction between the browser and the Web server. The cookie has proven to be the most reliable, robust, and network friendly means to provide needed state functionality on the Web, although this functionality can also be provided by embedding state information in URLs, using hidden fields in HTML forms, or using the client’s IP address (Kristol, 2002).

Web bugs are hidden images that can be covertly added to any Web page; e-mail, or Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file and used to collect information about user bahaviour. Web bugs send messages back to a server indicating its location, including the IP address of the computer, the URL of the page, the time the Web page or document was viewed, the type of browser used, and the previously set cookie value. Web bugs can also be used to determine if and when a Web page, e-mail message, or document is opened, the IP address of the recipient, and how often and to whom information is forwarded and opened (Harding, 2001).

Web bugs can also be used to associate a Web browser cookie to a particular e-mail address and read previously set cookie values. Thus, a source server with a very small or invisible window could be added to any Web site or Web-enabled file and used serendipitously for a variety of tracking, surveillance, and monitoring activities (Berghel, 2001). Monitoring browsing activities in and of itself is not considered by most Web users to be privacy invasive; however it is the ability to then link these activities back to an individual that has most consumers and privacy advocates alarmed (Turner & Dasgupta, 2003).

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One of the first technologies available for protecting privacy on the Internet was the anonymizer. Anonymizers provide the ability to sanitize packet headers passed from the client to the server. Early versions consisted of software that would act like a proxy server, intercepting all communication between the browser and the server and removing all information about the requester. Current versions use Se­cure Socket Layers (SSL) technology for sending URL requests, establishing an encrypted communications tunnel between the user and the anonymizer proxy, and routing traffic through a number of proxy servers (Electronic Privacy Information Center, 1999).

This firewall- like technology disguises a user’s IP address, similar to most Internet service providers, and supplies with dynamic IP addresses every time they log on. Software tools are also available that provide a pseudonym proxy for logging on the Web sites, giving users consistent access to registration based systems without revealing personal data (Gabber, 1999). Web users can also install a filter, such as the one offered by Anonymizer. Filters are software programs that block cookies, banner advertisements and Web bugs. The disadvantage of filters is that they fail to consider consent; they block all cookies and thus users lose access to all personalized services, even those from the most trustworthy of sites. Also filters make privacy invasion difficult, but not impossible. A site can still identify users by IP address, interaction time, and geographical loca­tion, for example.

Given this users might need additional levels of privacy protection (Ishitani, 2003). These tool provide a means to protect the network identity of the computer; however, there are also negative performance and reliability consequen- ses. In addition, some specialized proxy servers can be used to intercept and alter information between client and server (Berghel, 2002). There are other technology-based solutions available for protecting privacy, includ­ing tools for filtering HTML allowing users to block certain URLs, anonymous re-mailers for sending and receiving e-mail messages, and software for managing Web cookies (Electronic Privacy Information Center, 1999).

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Carrier IQ Lawsuit