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It's taken long enough but someone finally said "enough" :-

Google fined $7m for Street View snooping - Americas - World - The Independent

Shame on them! Don't they know that only governments are allowed to do that?

Google has also been required to rigorously police its own employees on privacy issues, and will introduce and ten-year training scheme for staff
A ten year training scheme ?

Is that per employee, or an ongoing scheme that will last ten years for all employees ?

What was the data they accessed ?

Bryn Mawr;1422576 wrote: It's taken long enough but someone finally said "enough"
The fine was $7m?

And Google's higher-management annual bonus this year was $15m per manager?

The penalty would have meant more if it had been a thousand times higher. What's $7m to Google. What's $7bn, come to that, but the penalty would have been more meaningful at that level.

As to "what was the data", it gathered MAC addresses (the unique device ID for Wi-Fi hotposts) and network SSIDs (the user-assigned network ID name) tied to location information for private wireless networks. Google also admits that it has intercepted and stored Wi-Fi transmission data, which includes email passwords and email content [...] Google acknowledged that "in some instances entire emails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords."

EPIC - Investigations of Google Street View

On an even happier note Microsoft have been fined by the eu.

BBC News - Microsoft fined by European Commission over web browser

Be more useful if they compelled retailers to offer laptops and computers without the compulsory windows operating system. Don't know for sure but In suspect hat might bring down the prices.

gmc;1422597 wrote: Be more useful if they compelled retailers to offer laptops and computers without the compulsory windows operating system. Don't know for sure but In suspect hat might bring down the prices.


The laptop I'm using was delivered with no operating system and the price - £270 - would have been £340 had it come with a Microsoft licence. It's behaving very well. That £70 difference seems to be the price of an enforced Microsoft purchase, I'm glad there are firms like Zoostorm who refuse to toe the line.

It's the manufacturer who installs the OS, not the retailer.

FG;1422600 wrote: The laptop I'm using was delivered with no operating system and the price - £270 - would have been £340 had it come with a Microsoft licence. It's behaving very well. That £70 difference seems to be the price of an enforced Microsoft purchase, I'm glad there are firms like Zoostorm who refuse to toe the line.

It's the manufacturer who installs the OS, not the retailer.


There is nothing more annoying than buying laptop/pc with preinstalled garbage. I naively bought a laptop last summer, when the sales assistant assured me that Norton wouldnt be installed (along with all sorts of useless paraphernalia ) It wasn't. It was McAfee and they still bother me now 6 months after uninstalling it

FG;1422600 wrote: The laptop I'm using was delivered with no operating system and the price - £270 - would have been £340 had it come with a Microsoft licence. It's behaving very well. That £70 difference seems to be the price of an enforced Microsoft purchase, I'm glad there are firms like Zoostorm who refuse to toe the line.

It's the manufacturer who installs the OS, not the retailer.


The retailers order from the manufacturers they don't just need to buy what they are given, if they wanted to they could quite easily specify product without an operating system and give people the choice. Realistically there probably isn't the demand. Theoretically you are within your rights to refuse the microsoft licence once you've read it and insist they refund or replace it. As a UK resident I don't see why I should l be obliged to accept a licensing agreement under US law and it's a bloody cheek that they insist I do.

gmc;1422608 wrote: The retailers order from the manufacturers they don't just need to buy what they are given, if they wanted to they could quite easily specify product without an operating system and give people the choice. Realistically there probably isn't the demand. Theoretically you are within your rights to refuse the microsoft licence once you've read it and insist they refund or replace it. As a UK resident I don't see why I should l be obliged to accept a licensing agreement under US law and it's a bloody cheek that they insist I do.


The anoyance to me (and one that Microsoft have already lost an anti-trust suit over) is that you effectively cannot run a machine under Windows without Internet Explorer loaded.

IE is a security risk I would happily do without.

These sort of carry ons is probably why the growth of Linux is gathering momentum.

Novatech supply PCs with no OS.