Judge Rejects Warrant Seeking To Force Everyone At A Searched Location To Unlock Seized Electronic Devices

from the new-brute-force-method-revealed dept

Late last year, Thomas Fox-Brewster of Forbes uncovered a strange search warrant among a pile of unsealed documents. The warrant -- approved by a magistrate judge -- allowed law enforcement officers to demand that everyone present at the searched location provide their fingerprints to unlock devices seized from the same location.

In support of its request, the government cited cases dating back to 1910, as though they had any relevance to the current situation. The most recent case cited was 30 years old -- still far from easily applicable to today's smartphones, which are basically pocket-sized personal data centers.

The judge granted it, stating that demands for fingerprints, passwords, or anything (like encryption keys) that might give law enforcement access to the devices' content did not implicate the Fourth or Fifth Amendments. While the magistrate was correct that no court has found the application of fingerprints to unlock devices to be a violation of the Fifth Amendment, the other access options (passwords, encryption keys) might pose Fifth Amendment problems down the road.

Riana Pfefferkorn has uncovered a similar warrant request, but this one has been rejected by the magistrate judge. Pretty much across the board, the order is the antithesis of the one revealed last year. The judge finds [PDF] that the broad request to force everyone present at the residence to apply their fingerprints to seized devices to unlock them implicates multiple Constitutional amendments.

The issues presented in this warrant application are at the cross section of protections provided by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Essentially, the government seeks an order from this Court that would allow agents executing this warrant to force "persons at the Subject Premises" to apply their thumbprints and fingerprints to any Apple electronic device recovered at the premises. (See Attach. B, tT 12.) The request is neither limited to a particular person nor a particular device. And, as noted below, the request is made without any specific facts as to who is involved in the criminal conduct linked to the subject premises, or specific facts as to what particular Apple-branded encrypted device is being employed (if any).

The judge notes the government is able to detain and search persons located at the premises being searched, but that does not extend to forcing every single person in a residence at the time of a search to comply with attempts to unlock seized devices. Because the warrant affidavit contained no particularity about the devices or who in the household the government suspected of engaging in criminal activity, the court can't find anything that justifies the broad, inclusive language contained in the request.

This Court agrees that the context in which fingerprints are taken, and not the fingerprints themselves, can raise concerns under the Fourth Amendment. In the instant case, the government is seeking the authority to seize any individual at the subject premises and force the application of their fingerprints as directed by government agents. Based on the facts presented in the application, the Court does not believe such Fourth Amendment intrusions are justified based on the facts articulated.

The court has other problems with the affidavit -- beyond the government's unwarranted extension of Fourth/Fifth Amendment jurisprudence to cover any devices/fingerprints encountered at a searched location. Early in the order, it notes the government is deploying boilerplate nearly as outdated as its case citiations.

Despite the apparent seriousness of the offenses involved, the Court notes that some of the "boilerplate" background information included in the warrant is a bit dated, such as its explanation that "[t]he internet allows any computer to connect to another computer [so] [e]lectronic contact can be made to millions of computers around the world;" its explanation that a "Blackberry" is a common "Personal Digital Assistant" and its suggestion that the use of "cloud technology" is the exceptional way of transferring files and that transferring images to a computer by directly connecting a cable to a camera or other recording device is the expected means of data transfer.

The judge notes outdated boilerplate isn't enough to undo probable cause assertions, but it certainly doesn't help -- especially not when the government is requesting this sort of broad permission.

The inclusion of this somewhat dated view of technology certainly does not distract from the application's goal of establishing probable cause. However, the dated "boilerplate language" is problematic for what is not included. There is absolutely no discussion of wireless internet service and the possibilities and capabilities that wireless service presents in this context. For example, an unsophisticated intemet user, or a careless one, may fail to properly encrypt his wireless service or may share the password injudiciously. Such practices leave open the possibility that it is not an inhabitant of the subject premises that has used the internet to gather and distribute child pornography, but rather it is a person who has access to the internet service at the subject premises.

Obviously, this possibility holds true in all investigations that track the investigation outlined in the instant application. The limitations of this investigation are not fatal to establishing probable cause, but, in the Court's view, these limitations do impact the ability of the government to seek the extraordinary authority related to compelling individuals to provide their fingerprints to unlock an Apple electronic device.

Then there's the other assertions. The government's application does nothing to narrow down which resident it's seeking or what device(s) might contain evidence of criminal activity. What it does appear to be certain about -- for reasons not included in the application -- is that the devices it seeks are Apple products. A footnote in the order questions this assertion.

Why Apple devices are likely to be found at the premises is not explained. The Court is aware that Apple has a large market share in online hardware, but Microsoft's Windows operating systems continue to dominate the overall market share of operating systems used.

What makes these broad, unsupported assertions even worse, especially when combined with the outdated boilerplate, is that this is apparently the direction the government is heading with its search warrants.

In closing, upon presentation of the warrant application to this Court, the government identified for this Court that the warrant application was seeking the forced fingerprinting discussed herein. The government further noted "[t]his is the language that we are making standard in all of our search warrants." This declaration of standardization is perhaps the crux of the problem. As the Court hopes it is plain from the above, the issues presented here require a fact-intensive inquiry both for purposes of the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment.

More particularity, better probable cause, and fewer assumptions about the Fourth and Fifth Amendment's application in a post-Riley world are what's needed from the government, according to this order. Even though this application was rejected, it's safe to say this same approach has worked elsewhere. We've seen one approved warrant already and there are likely several more safely hidden from the public eye in the government's multitudinous sealed cases.

What's troubling about the government's assertions in this application is its apparent belief it's found an encryption workaround: one that blows past Fourth and Fifth Amendment concerns using little more than boilerplate that still considers cables to be an essential part of "cloud computing," and magistrate judges willing to buy its outdated legal arguments.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, 5th amendment, fingerprints, location, search, warrant

4th Circuit Appeals Court Rolls Back Its Warrant Requirement For Cell Site Location Info

from the the-'summer-of-the-Fourth-Amendment'-is-so-last-year dept

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals was one of the few appeals courts to rule on the constitutionality of obtaining cell site location info without a warrant. And it was -- was -- the only appeals court to find warrantless access violated the Fourth Amendment. The decision was limited to the collection of historical cell site data for extended periods of time (the court appeared to believe anything beyond two weeks was questionable), mainly because there was a good chance the records would contain considerable detail about a person's movements in private places.

The government immediately requested an en banc hearing by the Appeals Court. The hearing was granted and the court has patched up its split with the other circuits by finding in favor of the government and the Third Party Doctrine. [PDF link]

We now hold that the Government’s acquisition of historical CSLI from Defendants’ cell phone provider did not violate the Fourth Amendment.

Supreme Court precedent mandates this conclusion. For the Court has long held that an individual enjoys no Fourth Amendment protection “in information he voluntarily turns over to [a] third part[y].” Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 743-44 (1979). This rule -- the third-party doctrine -- applies even when “the information is revealed” to a third party, as it assertedly was here, “on the assumption that it will be used only for a limited purpose and the confidence placed in the third party will not be betrayed.” United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435, 443 (1976).

All of our sister circuits to have considered the question have held, as we do today, that the government does not violate the Fourth Amendment when it obtains historical CSLI from a service provider without a warrant. In addition to disregarding precedent, Defendants’ contrary arguments misunderstand the nature of CSLI, improperly attempt to redefine the third-party doctrine, and blur the critical distinction between content and non-content information.

The Supreme Court may in the future limit, or even eliminate, the third-party doctrine. Congress may act to require a warrant for CSLI. But without a change in controlling law, we cannot conclude that the Government violated the Fourth Amendment in this case.

The nod to 1979's Smith v. Maryland is back in place, setting this decision firmly in Third Party Doctrine territory. If it's "voluntarily conveyed" to a third party, the government doesn't need a warrant to access it. The key, though, is the "voluntary" part. While the majority finds the collection of cell site location data by service providers to be somehow a "voluntary" conveyance by customers, the three dissenting judges aren't as impressed by this argument.

The dissenting opinion (starting at p. 47) goes through the majority decision's citations and sees a whole lot more voluntary effort being made by citizens than what happens during the automatic acquisition of cell site info by phone companies.

The Supreme Court, then, has intentionally employed the “voluntary conveyance” concept in every relevant case to limit the reach of an otherwise sweeping per se rule that denies Fourth Amendment protection. It seems therefore crucial here to ask: what, precisely, did the Court mean when it chose those words, in the context of those cases?

Here is what those various defendants actually did to “voluntarily convey” information. One used his finger to dial, one by one, the numerical digits of a telephone number. Smith, 442 U.S. at 741 (highlighting that pen registers disclose “only the telephone numbers that have been dialed” (quoting United States v. N.Y. Tel. Co., 434 U.S. 159, 167 (1977))). Another submitted multiple checks and deposit slips—each presumably bearing a date, a dollar amount, a recipient name, and a personal signature. Miller, 425 U.S. at 442. The others actually spoke. White, 401 U.S. at 746–47 (conversations with a bugged government informant related to narcotics transactions); Hoffa, 385 U.S. at 296 (statements to an associate “disclosing endeavors to bribe [jury] members”); Lewis, 385 U.S. at 210 (conversations with an undercover law enforcement agent in the course of executing a narcotics sale).

In all of these cases—the only cases that can bind us here— “voluntary conveyance” meant at least two things. First, it meant that the defendant knew he was communicating particular information. We can easily assume Miller knew how much money he was depositing, that Smith knew the numbers he was dialing, and that Hoffa, Lewis, and White knew about the misconduct they verbally described to another.

Second, “voluntary conveyance” meant that the defendant had acted in some way to submit the particular information he knew. Crucially, there was an action—depositing, dialing, speaking— corresponding to each piece of submitted information. And where many data pieces were compiled into records—financial records in Miller, phone records in Smith—there was presumptively a discrete action behind each piece of data. The Court never suggested that the simple act of signing up for a bank account, or a phone line, was enough to willingly turn over thousands of pages of personal data.

The dissent goes on to point out that CSLI -- unlike other "voluntarily conveyed" third-party records -- isn't even made available to the customers that generate it. Customers have access to call records, bank statements, and other information collected under the Third Party Doctrine, but there's no easily-accessible way for citizens to view the location records they're conveniently generating for the government. This lack of access to information strongly suggests the collection of cell site location data by phone companies has nothing to do with voluntary conveyance.

The majority believes that if a "fix" is required, it should be left to legislators.

The legislative branch is far better positioned to respond to changes in technology than are the courts.

This is said with a straight face before using the Electronic Communications Privacy Act as an example of legislators' prowess: a law gives the government access to the contents of any electronic communications older than 180 days -- and which has yet to be updated in any serious form by legislators over the past 30 years, even as the tech landscape surrounding it has experienced monumental changes.

The majority maintains Congress "has not been asleep at the switch" since the ECPA's institution. And it's somewhat correct. Attempts have been made to rewrite the law in reaction to the explosion of electronic communications since the mid-80s, but forward motion has been stalled by government agencies unwilling to cede ground to shifting expectations of privacy. So, yes, Congress can fix it, but it needs to run a gauntlet of agencies it's in no hurry to anger and administrations that overwhelmingly oppose any minimal contractions of government reach or power. And if Congress hasn't made any significant progress towards trimming back the Third Party Doctrine's overgrowth since 1979's Smith v. Maryland decision, it's tough to believe that this is the decade where it will finally make its move.

Filed Under: 3rd party doctrine, 4th amendment, cell site location info, csli, location, privacy, warrants

Prosecutors Argue Cell Site Location Data Is Something Every User Shares With 'The Rest Of The World'

from the no-expectation-of-privacy-in-things-we-insist-everyone-knows dept

The state of Maryland's defense of the Baltimore PD's warrantless use of Stingray devices continues, taking the form of a series of motions unofficially titled Things People Should Know About Their Cell Phones.

The last brief it filed in this criminal prosecution claimed "everyone knows" phones generate location data, therefore there's no expectation of privacy in this information. As commenters pointed out, people may know lots of stuff about records they're generating, but that doesn't mean law enforcement should have warrantless access to those records.

Everyone Knows… That my Doctors generate medical data about patients, so how about we get their medical records on public display without warrants!

With no expectation of privacy, there's no need for a warrant. And with no warrant requirement, there's no chance of having evidence tossed. That's a win Maryland needs, considering the Baltimore PD alone has deployed IMSI catchers several thousand times without obtaining warrants. Everything runs through pen register orders, which both lower the burden of proof and (in many cases) obscure the technology actually being used.

Now, it's back with its response to the defendant's motion to dismiss and it's again claiming People Know Stuff, therefore no expectation of privacy. (h/t Brad Heath)

After dismissing the defendant's arguments about police use of location tracking devices as "dystopian fantasies," the state argues it's time for the accused (not just this one, but any others facing prosecutions predicated on warrantless cell phone tracking device usage) to stop pretending they don't know how much data their phones are coughing up.

While cell phones are ubiquitous, they all come with "off" switches. If a cell phone is turned on, it is receiving signals from cell towers, and sending signals back out to cell towers. The cell site simulator used in this case took advantage of that fact in order to locate Andrews's phone. Because Andrews chose to keep his cell phone on, he was voluntarily sharing the location of his cell phone with third parties. Under the doctrine set forth by the Supreme Court in Smith, supra, he cannot claim a Fourth Amendment privacy right in this case.

The "Smith" the state refers to is 1979's Smith v. Maryland, which law enforcement loves to use in cell phone surveillance cases, because:

a) it's incredibly outdated, and
b) it provides a very broad and favorable reading of the Third Party Doctrine as it relates to phone usage.

The state says it's the defendant's own fault he was located. After all, he had a choice. And he chose badly.

Andrews complains that the police "invaded" a "constitutionally protected area," and therefore this search triggered Fourth Amendment protections under United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705 (1984) and Kyllo v. United States, 533 US. 27 (2001). But in Karo, the suspect was unaware that he had brought a police transponder into his home, and in Kyllo, the suspect was unable to prevent grow-lights (or his body) from emitting heat. Andrews, by contrast, was quite aware that he was bringing his own cell phone into the house. And he was quite capable of turning it off

The government's argument, while technically solid when used in conjunction with these precedent-setting decisions (Smith's outdated view of phones notwithstanding), but it becomes completely disingenuous when it describes the "sharing" of identifying phone data.

Just as the telephone company in Smith used transmitted phone numbers in a way quite distinct from the way in which the police used them, so, too, Andrews's cell service provider used the ID number broadcast by his cell phone in ways quite distinct from the way in which the police used it. The way in which the information was used does not alter the "expectation of privacy" in the information itself. Smith controls here. Andrews's addition of the adjective "exact" to the noun "location" does not alter that fact. The issue is not whether Andrews was aware that the police could find the location of his cell phone to within 20 yards. The issue is whether Andrews can claim an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in information which he was voluntarily broadcasting to third parties at all times. Under Smith, the answer is no.

There is no Fourth Amendment right to evade a valid arrest warrant. Andrews was wanted on multiple counts of attempted murder. A life "on the lam" may require some inconveniences, such as not staying in one's home, and turning one's cell phone off when not in use. There is no constitutional right to avoid being arrested for one's crimes, and nothing unreasonable about the police using the same information that Andrews was sharing with the rest of the world to apprehend him.

The "rest of the world?" Really? Andrews may have been able to talk his cell phone provider into turning over a copy of all the data his phone had generated, but it's not as though the general public has access to this information, expectation of privacy or no. Just because law enforcement can access this information with warrants or (more likely) pen register orders does not make it information "shared" with "the rest of the world." It is not shared indiscriminately and it's only because cell providers are legally compelled to cooperate with law enforcement (CALEA, etc.) that cops can obtain this information with a pen register order, rather than a warrant.

And, in this case, the information was not obtained with a court order. There may be a court order on record that would give the impression the BPD would approach a telco for phone records, but the actual collection of Andrews' location info was done with a Hailstorm cell tower spoofer. The state claims the request specified the use of a cell tower spoofer but there's no indication the presiding judge had any idea how much information these devices can obtain. A pen register order refers to a targeted phone number. A cell tower simulator gathers information from everyone in the area.

This isn't just a fight over this particular prosecution. This is the state safeguarding its thousands of Stingray deployments. If it's going to be able to keep those prosecutions from falling apart -- now that the BPD's devices are an open secret -- it needs the court to agree there's no expectation of privacy in cell phone location data. And in order to do that, it apparently needs the court to believe everyone using a cell phone is sharing all sorts of information with "the rest of the world."

Filed Under: 4th amendment, baltimore, expectation of privacy, location, location data, maryland, privacy, third party doctrine

Subway, McDonald's And Burger King Sued Over GPS Tracking Patent... Or Something

from the stupid-patent-of-the-month dept

GPS technology has been around for a while. Wikipedia puts the start of development at 1973. But it wasn't until the 1990s that it became available for consumer use. And even then, it took some time before the government removed restrictions on accuracy that it had on its use by civilians. (The government had added an intentional error to the signal that made GPS variably inaccurate up to 50 meters.)

With the loosening of restrictions on GPS came furious development in consumer applications—and a flurry of patents.

Which brings us to this month's Stupid Patent of the Month. The dubious honor goes to U.S. Patent No. 6,442,485, "Method and apparatus for an automatic vehicle location, collision notification, and synthetic voice," filed in 1999. The "Background of the Invention" talks about a need for an automatic voice system that could speak for a driver involved in a collision and transmit location details to 911. For example, the patent says that "[i]t would be desirable to have an automatic vehicle location and collision notification system that would ascertain if a vehicular collision had occurred and communicate directly with an emergency facility."

But after this background, the patent devolves into a wilderness of made-up words and technobabble. The patent includes fabricated phrases such as "Location Comparator-Indicator Module" and "Automatic Speed Controlled Location Detection Module." (Google searches of these phrases turns up nothing other than results related to the patent.) Reading the patent to try to figure out what it means becomes an exercise in cross-referencing and guesswork. Even worse, key terms in the claims (this is the part of the patent that is supposed to clearly explain what that patent covers) don't even appear in the description of the purported invention. This means  that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to understand what the claims mean and to guess how a court might interpret them.

This sort of made-up gobbledygook is likely what has allowed NovelPoint Tracking LLP, the owner of this month's Stupid Patent, to sue over 90 companies for infringement. The latest round of lawsuits, filed on March 27, 2015, includes companies such as Subway (the sandwich artists, not a company related to transportation), McDonald's, and Burger King.

And what do these fast food franchises have to do with vehicle location, collisions, and synthetic voices? With respect to Subway, NovelPoint claims that Subway's Windows phone mobile application infringes NovelPoint's patent.

Here's the description of Subway's app from Microsoft's website:

Don't know where to find a local Subway? We're here to help. This app will display a list of local Subway locations along with the ability to get directions and let your friends know where to meet you.

We don't know what, exactly, NovelPoint thinks it owns, but it looks like it is accusing Subway of infringing because it has an app that shows a map with directions. And given the incomprehensibility of its patent, it can get away with this, at least enough to secure a quick settlement and get out before a court rules that no, in fact, it doesn't own a map with directions.

And indeed that is what appears to have happened. Of the almost 100 cases NovelPoint has filed, exactly none of the cases has had a decision on the merits of NovelPoint's claims. From what we can see, all of the cases have settled very quickly, most likely for small nuisance sums.

Patent owners shouldn't be able to get away with this. Patents should be clear and understandable. If new words are used, they should be defined. And if words already exist in the relevant art, they should be used. NovelPoint's patent is a great example of how using fake terms can be used to obfuscate what the patent actually claims, and then used to claim infringement by something no one would have considered the patent owner to have invented. We have laws that should prevent this sort of gaming. The Patent Office and courts need to start actually enforcing them. 

Reposted from the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Deeplinks blog

Filed Under: gps, location, patents, stupid patent of the month
Companies: burger king, mcdonald's, novelpoint, novelpoint tracking, subway

Feds Won't Challenge Ruling That Says It Needs A Warrant To Put GPS Devices On Cars... For Now

from the but-we'll-see-if-that-stays dept

Back in October, we wrote about the Third Circuit appeals court ruling that attaching a GPS device to someone's car required a warrant. While the Justice Department is now challenging the part of that decision which said that the evidence obtained via the warrantless GPS use must be sustained (the government is arguing for a "good faith exception" to let it use the information under the belief that it was collected legally -- basically saying if they knew it required a warrant they would have gotten one), it has decided to not challenge the larger point that a warrant is needed to attach a GPS device to a car. That's good news, but it's only a little bit of good news.

The government does say that it "respectfully disagrees with the Court's requirement of a warrant to install and use a GPS device" but isn't seeking a review of that ruling. That, most likely, means that it's just waiting for another court to rule on the matter in a different circuit (and hoping for a better outcome) and can pit those two circuits against each other in a Supreme Court review. So, basically, it's just avoiding the issue for the time being.

Filed Under: doj, gps, location, privacy, warrant

Yes, The NSA Tracked Mobile Phone Locations, Despite Previous Semi-Denials

from the under-this-program dept

We had just talked about how Ron Wyden has been trying to pin the NSA down on whether or not it collected mobile phone location data, and how NSA officials continue to dance around the question by claiming "not under this program." Charlie Savage, over at the NY Times, now has an article about a "pilot program" the NSA did doing bulk collection of the location of Americans' mobile phones. The pilot program was run in 2010 and 2011. While the NSA eventually decided not to go forward with the program, they certainly did use it for a period of time. The existence of the program was apparently "recently declassified" by James Clapper -- but not actually revealed (neat trick!). Clapper had a "draft answer" ready about the program if he was asked about it, but with Feinstein carefully making sure Wyden couldn't ask too many questions, it appears the question never made it to the floor. Still, the NY Times received the draft answer, which according to them said:

“In 2010 and 2011 N.S.A. received samples in order to test the ability of its systems to handle the data format, but that data was not used for any other purpose and was never available for intelligence analysis purposes,” the draft answer says, adding that the N.S.A. has promised to notify Congress and seek the approval of a secret surveillance court in the future before any locational data was collected using Section 215.

Senator Wyden told the NY Times that this answer is not providing "the real story":

“After years of stonewalling on whether the government has ever tracked or planned to track the location of law-abiding Americans through their cellphones, once again, the intelligence leadership has decided to leave most of the real story secret — even when the truth would not compromise national security,” Mr. Wyden said.

I imagine there will be much more to come on this story.

Filed Under: cell-site location, james clapper, keith alexander, location, nsa, nsa surveillance, ron wyden, surveillance

Nestle: Buy Our Candy So We Can Hunt You Down

from the and-scare-the-nougat-out-of-you dept

Corporate contests. They so often lead to hijinks at the hands of technology, such as that time the internet decided Mountain Dew's new flavor should be "Gushing Granny." Oh, and there was that one online promotion that sent something called Taylor Swift to sing at a school for the deaf. But, lest you think that this volatile mixture of technology and corporate contests is good only for laughs, picture the following.

You're walking down a street in a European city, reading about how something someone did somewhere upset a major world religion, and you decide you need respite from the madness of the news. So you walk into a corner store, buy a candy bar, and tear it open, ready to bite into a soft, gooey explosion of stress-melting flavor-gasm. That, of course, is when the black helicopters and MiBs appear out of nowhere, rushing you with an ominous black suitcase. If someone froze you right there in that moment, what do you think you would likely expect to happen next?

Image source: CC BY 2.0

Well, you'd be wrong (probably). Because those aren't darkly dressed neo-terrorists that have for some reason decided to specifically blow you up with a neutron bomb (dear lord, you're self-centered). No, it's your friendly folks at Nestle, responding to the GPS technology in your treat to hand you £10,000 in cold, pants-crappingly terrifying cash. It's all part of the new Nestle contest to reward customers by tracking them down via GPS technology in their candybars within 24 hours of being consumed. They named this campaign "Nestle: we will find you!", because apparently "Nestle: we could find and kill you for eating our products anytime we wanted to" didn't strike quite the right tone.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that there's no reason for me to think this contest will play out the way I described above. Well, here's Nestle's own ad for the contest.

Now, I'm generally all for creative promotions, but this all seems terrifying. A private company is going to track me down via GPS and throw a suitcase at me in a major city? Well, not me, since not only am I not European, but I'm one of the six people on the planet that absolutely hates chocolate...but you, sweet Euro-reader! It could be you who fudges your pants after eating fudge! So, in conclusion, the article gives a listing of the candy bars you should avoid if you don't want to be hunted down.

The grand prizes for Nestle's We Will Find You promotion, involve these four chocolate products: KitKat 4 Finger, KitKat Chunky, Aero Peppermint Medium and Yorkie Milk.

($10 says there's a porno parody of those candy names out there somewhere.)

Filed Under: candy bar, gps, location, promotions, scary
Companies: nestle

Google Maps Exodus Continues As Wikipedia Mobile Apps Switch To OpenStreetMap

from the location,-location,-location dept

Last year, Google announced that it would begin charging high-volume users for access to its previously free Maps API. It seemed like an odd move. Jacking up the price on something, without actually offering anything new to entice customers to stay, only works if you have a total monopoly—and free competitor OpenStreetMap was already growing rapidly at the time.

Not long after the Google announcement, we reported that property search engine Nestoria was jumping ship to OpenStreetMap. Then, in March, news began to spread that Apple was making a strong push to move away from Google Maps data on the iOS platform. FourSquare also abruptly switched. Now the exodus is continuing, with Wikipedia announcing that the latest versions of its mobile apps for iOS and Android have also ditched Google Maps for OpenStreetMap:

Previous versions of our application used Google Maps for the nearby view. This has now been replaced with OpenStreetMap - an open and free source of Map Data that has been referred to as ‘Wikipedia for Maps.’ This closely aligns with our goal of making knowledge available in a free and open manner to everyone. This also means we no longer have to use proprietary Google APIs in our code, which helps it run on the millions of cheap Android handsets that are purely open source and do not have the proprietary Google applications.

One wonders how Google didn't see this coming—or if they did, what exactly their strategy is here. OpenStreetMap is gaining a lot of momentum, and in some areas even features much better data. The real lesson here is that there's never an incumbent that isn't at risk of being unseated, no matter how widespread the adoption of their product or service—especially if they make an anti-customer decision like Google when it put a price tag on Maps. The situation also points to the long-term strength of open solutions: while a crowdsourced system like OpenStreetMap never could have put together a global mapping product as quickly as Google did, over time it has become a serious competitor in terms of both quality and convenience. Indeed, none of the companies that have switched pointed to the price as their number one reason—potentially superior quality, and the desire to support open data, are generally listed as significant factors. Location-based tools are a rapidly growing field, and by failing to stay ahead of their more open competitors (while becoming less open themselves), Google may have sacrificed their role as a crucial engine driving such services.

Filed Under: crowdsourcing, location, map, mobile, open alternative
Companies: google, openstreetmap, wikipedia

The End Of The Global Internet? Google's Blogger Starts Using Country-Specific Domains To Permit Local Censorship

from the it-was-good-while-it-lasted dept

Twitter has taken quite a lot of heat for putting in place the capability to block tweets on a geographical basis. This begins to look a little unfair in light of the fact that Google quietly adopted a similar policy before Twitter. That's shown by the answer to a question on Google's Blogger site about blogs being redirected to country-specific URLs, which at the time of writing was last updated on 9 January 2012. Here's what it says:

Q: Why am I seeing a URL change?
A: Over the coming weeks you might notice that the URL of a blog you're reading has been redirected to a country-code top level domain, or "ccTLD." For example, if you're in Australia and viewing [blogname].blogspot.com, you might be redirected [blogname].blogspot.com.au. A ccTLD, when it appears, corresponds with the country of the reader’s current location.

Google is quite frank about why it is doing this:

Q: Why is this happening?
A: Migrating to localized domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law. By utilizing ccTLDs, content removals can be managed on a per country basis, which will limit their impact to the smallest number of readers. Content removed due to a specific country’s law will only be removed from the relevant ccTLD.

This is not only what Twitter is doing, but employs exactly the same topsy-turvy logic: by enabling local censorship, we are promoting free expression. That in itself is obviously troubling, not least because Google may be setting off down a slippery slope that sees all of its services segmented by geography to avoid local problems. But there's an even deeper issue.

If more and more companies follow the lead of Google and Twitter, as seems quite likely, it could represent the beginning of the end of the truly global Internet. In its place will be an increasingly balkanized online world subject to a patchwork of local laws. Looks like geography just made a comeback.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: blocking, blogs, censorship, free speech, global, location
Companies: google, twitter

Misguided Twitter Protests... And Why Twitter Could Have Explained Itself Better

from the think-this-through dept

Last week, Twitter announced that it now had the ability to block tweets geographically, if necessary. As we noted at the time, this appeared to be a way to limit the impact of censorship to certain countries. That is, rather than completely taking down content (as it would do before), instead it would limit the blocks to just the geographic region. On top of that, it would be quite transparent about this -- posting all info to ChillingEffects, and trying to let users know if they were visiting the page of a censored tweet.

Unfortunately, many people interpreted this as Twitter giving in to censors and allowing censorship. But that's a misreading of the situation. Again: Twitter already takes down content when required by law. Now it's trying to limit such takedowns. However, because people interpreted this to mean it was getting into the censorship business, there were protests against Twitter, which I think missed the point entirely.

The folks over at EFF have a good explainer post that details why this policy actually means less censorship, not more.

That said, Twitter still deserves some of the blame for the way in which it presented this. While it mentioned it in passing, it should have focused much more heavily on the fact that this was an attempt to limit the ability of countries to more widely censor info. Of course, there are some who believe Twitter should simply stand up against any and all attempts to take down content -- but the fact is that there are legal situations in which content is ordered to be taken down via a court order. In this case, Twitter is providing a lot more info and transparency than it was before. That's a good thing... but it's really not how they positioned their own story.

Filed Under: blocking, censorship, free speech, global, location
Companies: twitter