Google, however, insisted that the suit was groundless, saying that “EPIC is wrong on the facts and the law.” Late yesterday afternoon, the court agreed to expedite the case, giving the FTC until February 17th to respond to the suit, and EPIC until the 21st to file their reply to the FTC.

Now it looks like Google may have been ahead of the game the entire time. Politico is reporting this afternoon that they have managed to get hold of a report Google filed with the FTC on January 26th detailing the company’s compliance with the very consent order that EPIC insists their new privacy policy violates.The report details the steps that Google has undertaken to maintain the privacy of their users and to ensure that users are properly notified of the changes to Google’s policy. The report describes an “aggressive notification process” that Google intends to use “to promote user awareness of the current terms of teh Google Privacy Policy and to present users with clear information in order to exercise meaningful choice regarding their continued use of Google services.”

The report walks through the provisions of the consent order step by step and describes the steps Google has taken to make sure that their new privacy policy complies with it. The report is dated January 26, 2012 (two days after the initial announcement), and signed by Keith Enright, Google’s Senior Privacy Council. A copy of the report can be found here.

One man in Pennsylvania is being charged with 68 felony counts after he went to painstaking lengths to manipulate underage girls through a series of fake Facebook accounts.

According to Attorney General Linda Kelly, the investigation into the activities of William R. Ainsworth began back in September of 2011, after he was arrested for attempting to engage in sexual acts with a 14-year-old girl. After he was arrested, they found that this one lascivious meeting was just the tip of the iceberg. After combing through thousands of online communications, performing 18 searches, and interviewing over 30 children, the state has put together one hell of a story about Mr. Ainsworth.

“We quickly discovered that there was much more to this case than the sexual solicitation of one girl,” Kelly said. “What we found was an intricate web of false Facebook identities that were used to establish online relationships with vulnerable girls, who were then manipulated into sending nude photos to Ainsworth – believing he was a young surfer living in Florida – or physically meeting Ainsworth for sex – under the impression that those sexual encounters would help raise money so the girls could run away to Florida to be with their new online friend.”

Here’s how Ainsworth allegedly constructed his webs of lies:

First, he created two fake Facebook profiles – Bill Cano and Anthony “Riip” Navari. He built up both profiles by creating a network of friends with people in the greater Pittsburgh area. Both of his characters were young surfers who had dropped out of high school and ran away to Florida. He supposedly bolstered the believability of his characters by taking images from around the internet.

Apparently, he amassed over 600 friends between the two fake profiles.

He then used Bill Cano to make contact with young girls. Once he had manipulated them by gaining their trust over a period of time, he would get them to send him nude and sexually explicit photos.

But that wasn’t enough. Here’s where the story takes an even darker turn.

Once Ainsworth had established a community of girls that cared about Bill Cano, he killed him off. Then comes “Rip” Navari, who swooped in posing to be Bill’s step-brother or best friend. He told the girls that Bill had been attacked and killed. It’s pretty easy to see how young girls could get wrapped up in all of this.

Ainsworth then put a third fake character into play, named Glenn Keefer. Keefer’s profile said that he was a “Sugardaddy looking for Sugarbabies,” living in the Pittsburgh area. Ainsworth used Rip to introduce the girls to Keefer. The story was that if they stripped or performed sex acts with Keefer, then he would give money to Rip so that Rip could help the girls fly down to Florida to be with him.

All in all, Ainsworth’s web tangled up 7 victims from the ages of 13-15. Five of those girls ended up sending nude photos and he actually met with two of them (posing as Keefer) for the purposes of sex.

This is a pretty intricate fake identity scam, and if found guilty, Ainsworth is going to pay a heavy price for it. You always hear about stuff like this, and how it could happen. But it’s very rare to see something surface that’s this elaborate. The internet is one of the greatest inventions of all time – but damn, it can be cruel.

Now, a federal judge has expedited the suit. The court has given the FTC until February 17 to file a response to EPIC’s demands, after which EPIC will have until the 21st to issue their own reply. According to a post on EPIC’s blog late yesterday, “[t]he Court’s deadlines reflect Google’s imminent, substantial changes to the company’s business practices.” EPIC accuses Google of preparing “to consolidate the personal data of Google users across 60 services,” which it claims is a violation of the earlier consent order. The original order dealt with Google’s short-lived Google Buzz social network.

Google has continued to insist that their new policy poses no threat to user privacy, and that they have worked hard throughout this process to be as transparent as possible and make sure all users are informed of the changes.

What do you think? Is EPIC overreacting? Sound off in the comments.

Not long after the earlier story ran, Google responded to my request for comment. Here’s what a Google spokesperson had to say:

We take privacy very seriously. We’re happy to engage in constructive conversations about our updated Privacy Policy but EPIC is wrong on the facts and the law.

The response is a little short on specifics – i.e., Google doesn’t explain how “EPIC is wrong on the facts and the law” – and the bullet points are similar to the one’s we’ve seen here and here, and the statement Google made here. Reading between the lines, it looks like Google thinks all the hubbub over their new privacy policy is much ado about nothing. Personally, I’m inclined to agree.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

EPIC filed their suit against the Federal Trade Commission in federal court in the District of Columbia. They filed a complaint (PDF) and a request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction (PDF) seeking to require the FTC to enforce the consent order and prevent Google from making the changes to their privacy policy.

Google’s attempt to create a simple, unified privacy policy for all their services has been met with a storm of controversy since it was announced late last month. Many expressed concerns about the impact of the new policy on their own privacy, and on Google’s access to their data. The situation drew the attention of Congress as well as the European Union, a prompted efforts by Google to set the record straight.

A request for comment from Google has not yet received a response. The new privacy policy is intended to go into effect on March 1.

The changes have drawn concern from Congress as well as the EU, though Google has defended the changes all the way with letters to both.

With Google’s changes in mind, Frugal Dad has put out the following infographic looking at online privacy and the “risks” that come with the spread of social media.

Source: frugaldad.com

Is there cause for concern? Let us know what you think.

The reason? To provide time for the EU’s Article 29 Working Party, which regulates data protection issues, to investigate possible user privacy and data protection concerns.

A Google spokesperson told WebProNews:

We briefed most of the members of the working party in the weeks leading up to our announcement. None of them expressed substantial concerns at the time, but of course we’re happy to speak with any DPA that has questions. As part of announcing our new privacy policy, we’ve made the largest communication to users in our history. Delaying the new policy would cause significant confusion.

Google has sent a letter back to CNIL, indicating that it has no intentions of pausing its rollout. The letter, for the most part, reads almost exactly like the company’s recent letter to congress. At the end, Google says:

Your letter has requested a pause while the Article 29 Working Party checks the possible consequences of the changes for our users. You letter states that this in in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google’s commitment to information rights of their users and EU citizens.

As you will know, we had extensively pre-briefed data protection authorities across the EU prior to the launch of our notification to users on 24 January 2012. At no stage did any EU regulator suggest that any sort of pause would be appropriate. Since we finished these extensive briefings, We have notified over 350 million Google account holders, as well as providing highly visible notices to all our non-authenticated users. In addition, the policy does not come into effect until 1 March 2012, as we wanted to leave more than adequate time for our users to be able to read and understand the policy before it’s fully implemented.

Google’s changes are scheduled to take effect on March 1.

Now the European Union has asked for a pause in the rollout of Google’s privacy policy changes. France’s National Commission for Computing and Civil Liberties, CNIL, has requested that Google delay the changes, which are scheduled to go into effect March 1. The delay would provide time for the European Union’s Article 29 Working Party, which is tasked with regulating data protection issues, to investigate possible user privacy and data protection concerns.

I contacted a Google spokesperson about the issue, and here’s what he had to say:

We briefed most of the members of the working party in the weeks leading up to our announcement. None of them expressed substantial concerns at the time, but of course we’re happy to speak with any DPA that has questions. As part of announcing our new privacy policy, we’ve made the largest communication to users in our history. Delaying the new policy would cause significant confusion.

What do you think? Is Google right to refuse to delay the changes? Is this controversy really much ado about nothing? Sound off in the comments.

Marianne Oleson has been charged with 33 felony charges in the Winnebago County Court. The prosecutors say the woman claimed to own shares of Facebook stock and swindled at least 4 people in to buying the fake stock. One complaint states that one man gave Oleson 28,000 dollars in cash money in exchange for “legitimate looking” documents.

Officials say Oleson acquired the documents from a Florida company that owns private stock of the social network giant by telling the company she was interested in buying 1 million dollars worth of shares.

Oleson has many aliases including the last names of Jansen, Milock and Maloney. Randy Stafford, the aforementioned man that was swindled says he was indeed “swindled”. Stafford performed construction on Oleson’s home and after she couldn’t afford to pay him, she offered him the stock in exchange; Stafford said:

“I think it’s a great opportunity, it’s a growing business so on and so forth.”

Reportedly, 18,00 dollars was in payment for work he did on the home and stafford payed an additional 10,000 dollars for the stocks themselves. Stafford went on to say:

“I’m interested in my options and investments so you don’t have to work as hard and make it a lot easier money for my kids and family.”

Stafford went on to say that “something didn’t feel right”; seems his instincts were correct; according to the victim, Oleson had bought up to 1 million dollars worth of the faux stock.

Police officials say that stafford wasn’t the only one duped. Jeff Bellin of the Winnebago County Sheriff’s office says:

“There were other victims initially identified and from there, it just grew.”

A criminal complaint lists 5 victims including Stafford that purchased or had the fake stock given to them as a gift. Bellin feels that there may be more victims out there too. To add insult to injury, Oleson is facing marijuana possession charges on top of her previous charges.

“Sometimes, when a person loves their Gmail very very much, the two get together and an ad is born,” The Gmail Man says.

As the story goes, this thinly veiled attack was actually a product of Microsoft. The video leak came from the Microsoft Global Exchange sales conference, which occurred in July. It was apparently shown there as a sort of “rally the troops” exercise – everyone sitting around, having a laugh at the expense of the competition type thing.

But now, Microsoft has released the video officially on their YouTube channel and they are promoting it via Twitter and Facebook.

Here’s the video, which appears to be unchanged from the leaked version. The point of it still seems to be advertising for Office 365.

As I mentioned before, this video isn’t new – but Microsoft’s official promotion of it is. And of course, the timing couldn’t be more poignant.

Google’s new privacy policy has gotten some people up in arms. Basically, Google is combining dozens of privacy policies into one, and saying that they will use information from all if their products to help personalize other products. Say you searched for “bears,” the next time you log into YouTube you might have a suggestion to watch some bear videos.

Whether it’s truly a big deal or not, Microsoft has jumped on the opportunity to slam Google. On Wednesday, they took out full page ads in major newspapers that said Google doesn’t put people first. The ads detailed Google’s privacy policy changes and suggested users switch to Microsoft alternatives like Hotmail and Bing.

Google quickly hit back, doing a little bit of mythbusting on their public policy blog. Here’s a relevant snippet from that rebuttal that pertains to Gmail man:

Myth: Google reads your email. [Microsoft]
Fact: No one reads your email but you. Like most major email providers, our computers scan messages to get rid of spam and malware, as well as show ads that are relevant to you.

Google goes on to talk about Microsoft’s own privacy policy:

We don’t make judgments about other people’s policies or controls. But our industry-leading Privacy Dashboard, Ads Preferences Manager and data liberation efforts enable you to understand and control the information we collect and how we use it—and we’ve simplified our privacy policy to make it easier to understand. Microsoft has no data liberation effort or Dashboard-like hub for users. Their privacy policy states that “information collected through one Microsoft service may be combined with information obtained through other Microsoft services

Wherever you stand on all of this privacy battle business, you have to admit that Microsoft’s Gmail Man ad is pretty funny.

Speaking of Gmail, one comedy group tackled the same kind of concerns with GMale, Google’s perfect boyfriend: