Google Settles Buzz Lawsuit - InformationWeek

Google began sending messages to Gmail users in the U.S. on Tuesday to provide notification that it had reached a settlement in the Buzz class action lawsuit.

The launch of Google's Buzz social networking service in February prompted a privacy outcry and subsequent lawsuits, which were aggregated into a class action.

Google made a series of changes to its service to address complaints that Buzz exposed private and potentially sensitive Gmail contacts. These included making choices about followers and following more visible, moving to an auto-suggest model rather than automatic following, and the addition of Buzz to the Google Dashboard to make it easier to see one's Buzz settings.

The settlement does not include an admission of error or any compensation for Gmail users. Rather it acknowledges the changes Google made in its service to address complaints and commits $8.5 million, less legal fees, to be directed to "organizations promoting privacy education and policy on the Web," as Google puts it in its letter.

Those seeking compensation have to opt-out of the settlement before the December 6 deadline, file a separate lawsuit, and win in court.

As a result of a separate privacy snafu -- the company's inadvertent gathering of WiFi packet data through its Street View cars -- Google last week made a significant commitment to improve its approach to privacy by adding a new director of privacy to oversee product management, implementing additional process controls and auditing, and adding further privacy education for employees.

See the latest collaboration tools and technologies at Enterprise 2.0 Santa Clara's comprehensive conference and expo. It happens Nov. 8-11, 2010, in Santa Clara, Calif. Find out more.

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School district settles webcam spying suit for $610000 - Computerworld

Computerworld - A suburban Pennsylvania school district accused of spying on students using school-issued laptops has agreed to pay $610,000 to settle litigation stemming from its controversial practice.

Under the proposed settlement, the Lower Merion School District will pay $185,000 to two high school students who had sued the district earlier this year for allegedly snooping on them. The remaining $425,000 will go to attorneys fees.

The proposed settlement was approved by the district's school board of directors Monday. It results from a "lengthy, court-ordered mediation" between all concerned parties, board President David Ebby said in a statement.

"Though we would have valued the opportunity to finally share an important, untold story in the courtroom, we recognize that in this case, a lengthy, costly trial would benefit no one," Ebby noted. The statement did not elaborate on what untold story Ebby was referring to.

The school district, in Ardmore, Pa., has been at the center of a huge controversy over its use of a specialized embedded software product for tracking stolen, lost or missing school-issued laptops. The district provided laptops to about 1,800 of its high school students, but did not inform them about the embedded tracking software, which could be used to remotely activate Webcams on the laptops.

In February, Blake Robbins, a district high school student, and his parents, filed a lawsuit against the school district accusing it of spying on him in his home. The lawsuit charged Lower Merion with remotely activating the Webcam on Robbins' laptop to take thousands of pictures of Blake and others members of his family, including some of Blake in his bedroom partially undressed, and some of him sleeping.

The lawsuit was filed after a school official accused Blake of selling drugs and taking pills based on a photograph captured by the school computer at his home. In court documents, lawyers for Blake accused Lower Merion officials of taking thousands of webcam photos and screenshots of numerous other students, many of whom had never reported their laptops as being missing or stolen.

An investigation conducted on behalf of the district later found that school-issued laptops had taken more than 30,000 photographs, using the activated tracking software.

In July, a second individual , Jalil Hassan, a former high school student from the same district, also sued, claiming that his laptop had snapped close to 500 photographs of him over a two-month period.

The school district itself vigorously denied it had spied on the students and claimed that the only reason it had installed the tracking software was to help it locate laptops reported as lost, missing or stolen.

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