Cake, Google and user privacy
Taking a step away from librariana ... I did a paper on data privacy and Google in relation to its acquisition of DoubleClick, so I'm rather interested in this issue. Is Google doing enough to protect the privacy of its users? According to this Op/Ed, the answer is no.
I have read and re-read Judge Stanton's decision in the Google/Viacom suit more times than I really should have. At first, I was as outraged as everyone else, assuming that Judge Stanton was one more government figure without a clue how the Internet even works.So I called my mother, who works in the courts, and ran it by her, and she pointed out two things to me: one, any Judge has a stable full of much younger and savvier law clerks who research this stuff to death, and two, everything a Judge does is based on precedent. So I went back and read the decision a few more times.
One thing keeps coming back when you look at it: the precedent cited in the decision was Google's own virtual flapping lips.