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Speaker 1: I'm into this story. I know a lot more than
Speaker 1: a lot of you are. Um, I wish you were
Speaker 1: more into it. In Europe, they treat your private information
Speaker 1: online as your private information. It's your property. That's the law,
Speaker 1: your data in the parlance of our time, and you
Speaker 1: have to agree in writing or at least clicking on it.
Speaker 1: I agree to to turn it over to somebody else.
Speaker 1: Obviously it's not that way in the United States. But Google,
Speaker 1: even though it's a that's on in your Google still
Speaker 1: doesn't care. Ryan Fall does a great job covering tech
Speaker 1: and related issues for The Washington Post. Frances find Google
Speaker 1: many millions of dollars. Brian joins is now Hello Brian,
Speaker 1: how are you, sir, do it all right? Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me, It's always our pleasure. So well, why did
Speaker 1: the French come down on Google to the tune of
Speaker 1: fifty seven mill Well, the French said Google hasn't been
Speaker 1: clear enough about how, um, you know, it provides choices
Speaker 1: for consumers when they're trying to decide whether or not
Speaker 1: um to sign up for Google services and use them. Um.
Speaker 1: And as a result, Google now had to pay about
Speaker 1: fifty seven billions I'm sorry, fifty seven million dollars um
Speaker 1: to uh to the French regulators who brought this fine
Speaker 1: against them. So are the namby pamby French courts saying
Speaker 1: that you know, my, uh, what Google is going to
Speaker 1: do with my data? Spread over seventy five densely written
Speaker 1: legalis papers, scattered across multiple documents, isn't good enough information
Speaker 1: for consumers? Well you know the rules that um you know,
Speaker 1: Google goal allegedly ran a foul of g d PR
Speaker 1: is a big topic in Europe right now because it
Speaker 1: went into effect last year and it's caused um, you
Speaker 1: know a lot of companies to have to rethink and
Speaker 1: reconsider how they provide notice to consumers about how their
Speaker 1: data is used. UM. And in this case, it seems
Speaker 1: that you know, the the uh Google, Google and its
Speaker 1: services failed to provide adequate notice to consumers, and that's
Speaker 1: what regulators are really going in after here. So are
Speaker 1: Europeans just more into privacy than we are in the
Speaker 1: United States, or or Google didn't do as good a
Speaker 1: job lobbying or what do you have any idea? Well, um,
Speaker 1: you know, if you talk to a lot of regulatory experts, UM,
Speaker 1: they do, by and large say, you know, Europe places
Speaker 1: a premium on privacy in ways that we don't really
Speaker 1: here in the United States. Um. They're also in Europe
Speaker 1: much more open to preemptive regulation than the United States
Speaker 1: is where you know. Here, typically what happens is, um,
Speaker 1: you know, a government agency will uh draft you know,
Speaker 1: guidelines or um proposals on things, and then um, it's
Speaker 1: rarely a law that gets put into place, and then um,
Speaker 1: you know, an agency will bring an investigation and then
Speaker 1: if it finds that a company did something wrong, it
Speaker 1: will take that company to court and then that gets
Speaker 1: hashed out of the judicial system. Uh. It's a very
Speaker 1: different system than what they have in Europe, where they're
Speaker 1: very clear, bright line rules up front for companies to
Speaker 1: follow the short answers. They regulate everything UM, and so
Speaker 1: they're super willing and sometimes that results in doing things
Speaker 1: that I think are a really good idea. Often not.
Speaker 1: You also have a lot of population, though that has
Speaker 1: much more recently. Had a government UM misusing their powers
Speaker 1: ryan information and all that sort of stuff, they might
Speaker 1: they might prize their information more. Yeah, you know, that's
Speaker 1: an interesting point. Culturally speaking, people were dragged out of
Speaker 1: their homes in Europe, uh, you know, much more recently
Speaker 1: than in the United States. Brian Fung the Wampos Online
Speaker 1: covers Tech matters. Do you this is hard to predict.
Speaker 1: This is more of a political cultural question than a
Speaker 1: tech think And you're a tech guy, But do you
Speaker 1: think those kind of laws are company in the United States?
Speaker 1: That's a great question. It's something that a lot of
Speaker 1: folks in Washington are trying to figure out right now. UM. Again,
Speaker 1: it's it's a big topic of debate here. You have
Speaker 1: you know, privacy advocates who are calling for UM the
Speaker 1: Federal Trade Commission, which is sort of the United States
Speaker 1: top data protection agency UM to get involved in UM,
Speaker 1: you know, regulating companies like Google more heavily. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: the FTC is currently engaged in investigating Facebook over whether
Speaker 1: or not Facebook violated a consent decree that you know,
Speaker 1: an agreement it's signed with the FTC in eleven UM
Speaker 1: governing consumers privacy. Um. You have a number of lawmakers
Speaker 1: who have proposed legislation that could implement a national privacy
Speaker 1: law that would cover all fifty states. UM. So this
Speaker 1: there's definitely a lot of conversation happening around privacy and
Speaker 1: how data is used by these companies. UM. But you know,
Speaker 1: at this point, we don't have anything that's on the
Speaker 1: books that will necessarily lead to finds like the kind
Speaker 1: of we saw Google getting hit with. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to know more, we'll have a link at Armstrong and
Speaker 1: Guetty dot com to Brian's story. Brian, it's always enlightening.
Speaker 1: Thanks a bunch, Thanks for having me. It's our pleasure. Also,
Speaker 1: speaking of the Wappo, it was wasn't long ago that
Speaker 1: they published a story we talked about that Google is
Speaker 1: the number one lobbyist in America. Everybody should know that
Speaker 1: at this point in twenty there's one reason for us.
Speaker 1: There's one reason A lot of times it's complicated, you know,
Speaker 1: big lobby in it. This one's simple. They their entire
Speaker 1: model is you use Google, They get all your info,
Speaker 1: they make money off of it, don't regulate anything about
Speaker 1: privacy or online advertising. That is why Google spent, for instance,
Speaker 1: eighteen million dollars. In the numbers feen aren't quite out.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing spreading in among Republicans and Democrats to make
Speaker 1: sure both sides of the aisle are covered in making
Speaker 1: sure we don't go with European style laws. The prickly
Speaker 1: libertarianism of the Armstrong and Getty show is very big
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley, and we appreciate folks listening there. I
Speaker 1: would like to make it clear to Google that I
Speaker 1: can be bought for about two million dollars. I will
Speaker 1: alter any in all opinions about you and an online
Speaker 1: privacy and online advertising again to million United States dollars,
Speaker 1: and I, Joe Getty will be bought to me. The
Speaker 1: idea that that information belongs to them is just is silly.
Speaker 1: I understand the argument or you don't have to use Google, right,
Speaker 1: It's a decent enough legalistic argument that we offer a
Speaker 1: service you don't have to use a smartphone. There in
Speaker 1: our seventy five pages of user agreements, again scattered over
Speaker 1: three different documents that you'd have to hire a team
Speaker 1: of lawyers to inspect. We make it clear to you
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do with it, and you said, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's fine, clear right, And that was actually a part
Speaker 1: of what the French court said. They said, essentially, you
Speaker 1: would have to do so much research to understand this.
Speaker 1: It's just not realistic, which you know, Viva le France,
Speaker 1: I say hello again. You know, it's funny. Life's complicated
Speaker 1: that that you subtlety shades are gray. France regulates everything
Speaker 1: to the point that they've choked their economy to death,
Speaker 1: and cute little Macrone is trying his best to tangle it.
Speaker 1: I think in this case they've probably done something I
Speaker 1: can right, They're right, it's my information. It is my
Speaker 1: unless I opt in to give it away. No, it's
Speaker 1: mine right where I go, what I buy all that stuff.
Speaker 1: By the way, I googled the fact that Google was
Speaker 1: the biggest lobbyist and and that was the number one result.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate that they didn't bury it seven pages
Speaker 1: deep or anything. There. It was when you're ready to
Speaker 1: ride Metro. We want you to know we're ready for you.
Speaker 1: Here are just a few of the people at Metro
Speaker 1: to tell you how we're doing our part to keep
Speaker 1: writers safe. Were cleaning like novel before half to a
Speaker 1: great Queen. You've found a hand sound of sounds of statist,
Speaker 1: no mask, no Metro need one. We have a few
Speaker 1: extras at Metro. We're doing our part to keep the
Speaker 1: DC area moving. Find out more at well mata dot com,
Speaker 1: slash doing our part