It seems it is better to buy forgiveness than to ask permission.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/03/google_tracking_settlements/

Google gets off easy in location tracking lawsuits

Google has settled two more of the many location tracking lawsuits it had been facing over the past year, and this time the search giant is getting an even better deal: just $29.5 million to resolve complaints filed in Indiana and Washington DC with no admission of wrongdoing.

The cases filed in the Midwestern state and the capital are similar to those settled elsewhere in the US in the last 12 months and center on allegations that Google deceived users into handing over location data, which it then turned into billions in advertising dollars.

Karl Racine, attorney general of Washington DC until his term ended yesterday, called the settlement [PDF] a win because "Google must also make clear to consumers how their location data is collected, stored, and used."

Racine said his office filed its suit because Google's behavior "made it nearly impossible for users to stop their location from being tracked." Washington DC's portion of the two settlements totals $9.5 million.

Indiana settled [PDF] for $20 million, which Attorney General Todd Rokita described as "another manifestation of our steadfast commitment to protect Hoosiers from Big Tech's intrusive schemes."

To TSA, it’s a game.

https://www.pogowasright.org/tsa-argues-for-impunity-for-checkpoint-staff-who-rape-travelers/

TSA argues for impunity for checkpoint staff who rape travelers

Ed Hasbrouck wrote:

Two years ago, at least a dozen women on a Qatar Airways flight to Sydney were ordered off the plane at Doha Airport in Qatar and subjected to forced vaginal examinations.

Australia made diplomatic protests, as both the airline and the airport are controlled by the government of Qatar. The Qatari government issued a public apology and said that, “Those responsible for these violations and illegal actions have been referred to the Public Prosecution Office.” Last month, just before the start of the World Cup soccer tournament in Qatar, some of the women filed a lawsuit in an Australian court against the airport operator and the airline.

If you think that this couldn’t happen in the USA, or that the victims would fare better with government authorities and in the courts in the USA than in Qatar, think again.

Today a panel of judges of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument in San Francisco in a lawsuit (Michele Leuthauser v. USA) brought by a woman who complained that she was digitally penetrated — a finger pushed into her vagina, i.e., raped — in 2019 by Transportation Security Administration staff after they ordered her into a back room at the airport in Las Vegas for a “pat-down” after she went through a whole-body imaging machine.

Read more at Papers, Please!

Maury Nichols pointed me to this article, which I missed back in October.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=6f2a3205-8937-4c1c-a20e-9ed4e7f58524&l=9XC25FU

In a nutshell: data protection, privacy and cybersecurity in USA