Privacy

Consumer Group Wants Google to Adopt “Right to Be Forgotten”

July 7, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p>Consumer Watchdog is asking the Federal Trade Commission to extend Europe’s “right to be forgotten” to Google and other search engines.</p> <p>Because of the European law adopted in 2014 as the result of a court case, Google has removed more than 41 percent of the requests it receive in Europe. It declined to remove about 495, 674 requests.</p>

Google’s Self-Driving Cars Hit Twice in June, But New 25 MPH Pods Unscathed

July 6, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p>According to a <a href="http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/selfdrivingcar/files/reports/report-0615.pdf">report released by Google</a> (PDF) this month, the company's self-driving cars were involved in two human-error accidents in the month of June. In addition, Google's funny little prototype self-driving bubble cars hit the streets of Mountain View for the first time. The company says that so far, the two prototypes logging hours on public streets have not been involved in any accidents.</p>

California Tax Officials Have Nothing Nice To Say About Blue Shield

July 6, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p>The California Franchise Tax Board had a lot to say about Blue Shield in its 16-page report following its audit of the third-largest health insurer in the state last year, but none of it was nice. The said audit led to Blue Shield losing its state tax exemption, the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-blue-shield-audit-20150705-story.html#page=2" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">LA Times</a> has learned.

Consumer Group Calls on Santa Monica Assemblyman Bloom to Drop Filing Fee Bill

June 30, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p>Santa Monica-area state Assemblyman Richard Bloom should drop his bill to hike the fee for filing a state ballot initiative to $2,500, after the California Attorney General’s Office tossed out a proposal that triggered the bill, a local consumer’s group said.</p> <p>The call by Santa Monica-based Consumer Watchdog came after Attorney General Kamala Harris rejected a ballot initiative that targets gays and lesbians and spurred Bloom to co-author AB1100 with Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Campbell.</p> <p>A call to Bloom’s office was not returned Monday.</p>

Net Neutrality Starts With a Whimper

June 28, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item even"> <p>It has been a quiet first two weeks for net neutrality.</p> <p>While the Federal Communications Commission’s new rules governing Internet providers like utilities are now in effect, consumers are unlikely to have noticed.</p>

Kamala Harris Can Block Gay Murder Initiative, Court Rules

June 23, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<div id="content-body-16194260-25356514"> <p>California Attorney General Kamala Harris does not need to advance a widely reviled ballot initiative authorizing the murder of homosexuals, a Sacramento Superior Court has ruled.</p>

Google’s Self-Driving Car Crashes: Should We Be Worried?

June 22, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p>As Google is working on rolling out the latest version of its self-driving cars for road tests this summer, the company has also revealed that its vehicles have been involved in a total of <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/06/05/google-to-report-driverless-car-accidents-going-forward/28538915/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">13 accidents</a> since the program began. That number was accrued over nearly two million miles of testing in six years, and most importantly, all of the accidents have been the fault of other drivers, not Google’s autonomous cars.</p>

Hotel Registry Ruling Might Shield Airbnb

June 22, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p>SACRAMENTO — A privacy advocacy group says the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling Monday in <i> <a href="http://www.nationallawjournal.com/home/id=1202730095414" rel="nofollow">California v. Patel</a></i> could make cities' efforts to collect information about short-term housing renters illegal.</p>

California Details Driverless Car Wrecks

June 19, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p><span class="InfoComponentTextChunk"><span class="InfoComponentTextContent"><span class="InfoComponentTextPrimitive"><span class="InfoComponentTextPara">LOS ANGELES - </span></span></span></span><span class="InfoComponentTextChunk"><span class="InfoComponentTextContent"><span class="InfoComponentTextPrimitive"><span class="InfoComponentTextPara">California state officials released reports Thursday detailing six accidents that involved self-driving car prototypes, reversing a policy that shielded details of how the next-generation technology is performing during testing on public roads.

To Take the Wheel, Robot Cars Must Pry it From My Cold Dead Hands

June 19, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p style="">Self-driving cars are a government plot. Clearly.</p> <p style="">All that talk about preventing accidents and saving lives? A classic, obvious ruse. Cars that communicate with each other and drive themselves are nothing less than an attempt by the car companies and a tyrannical government to monitor and control your every move.</p> <p style="">It’s all there on the Internet. Hint: You’ll find more rants against self-driving cars if you add “Obama” to your search terms.</p>

More Google Self-Driving Cars & Accident Claims in California

June 19, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p>Google is expanding its self-driving car fleet while the California Department of Motor Vehicles is providing more information about self-driving car collisions in California. The information provided, however doesn’t clearly show the cause of the accidents, notes a consumer advocacy group.</p>

FCC Asked to Get Tough on Do-Not-Track

June 19, 2015  ·  Mark Reback

<p>SACRAMENTO — The Santa Monica-based group Consumer Watchdog petitioned the Federal Communications Commission this week for rules that would force companies such as Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. to comply with do-not-track requests sent by web surfers' browsers.</p> <p>Such efforts haven't gone far in the past. California dabbled with legislation that tried to encourage websites to at least disclose how they respond to do-not-track signals. But it hasn't changed sites' practices in any meaningful way.</p>