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Monthly Archives: June 2022

Discover what people are asking about

“Get instant, raw search insights, direct from the minds of your customers.  There are 3 billion Google searches every day, and 20% of those have never been seen before. They’re like a direct line to your customers’ thoughts. Discover an untapped goldmine of content ideas. AnswerThePublic listens into autocomplete data from search engines like Google… Continue Reading

Google Is Sharing Our Data at a Startling Scale

Bloomberg: “It transmits our locations and browsing habits 70 billion times a day to advertisers amid trillions a year by other firms, a new report shows…Each time you open an app on your phone or browse the web, an auction for your eyeballs is taking place behind the scenes thanks to a thriving market for… Continue Reading

How to Find Public Google Docs (and Slides, Forms, Sheets, and Drawings too)

MakeUseOf: “You can literally find anything online; that is, if you know how to search and where to look. For instance, you can more easily search for a particular photo by using the right query and searching via Google Images. Similarly, you can easily find public Google Docs, Slides, Forms, Drawings, and Sheets using some… Continue Reading

Facebook Is Receiving Sensitive Medical Information from Hospital Websites

“Experts say some hospitals’ use of an ad tracking tool may violate a federal law protecting health information By Todd Feathers, Simon Fondrie-Teitler, Angie Waller, and Surya Mattu – A tracking tool installed on many hospitals’ websites has been collecting patients’ sensitive health information—including details about their medical conditions, prescriptions, and doctor’s appointments—and sending it… Continue Reading

Warren, Wyden, Murray, Whitehouse, Sanders Introduce Legislation to Ban Data Brokers from Selling Americans’ Location and Health Data

Bill Text (PDF) | One-Pager (PDF) – “United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced the Health and Location Data Protection Act, legislation that bans data brokers from selling some of the most sensitive data available about everyday Americans: their health and location data. The legislation is cosponsored by Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Chair of the… Continue Reading

What the TSA could teach Congress about gun control

Recode – “TSA PreCheck uses enhanced background checks to make everyone safer. With the country continually in mourning over gun violence — we keep seeing mass shooting after mass shooting after mass shooting — it’s time to find ways to prevent it, lest we remain the “only nation where this regularly happens.” Those solutions needn’t be… Continue Reading

Private Data/Public Regulation

Friedman, Barry, Private Data/Public Regulation (May 13, 2022). NSTL 2105 Hoover (2021), NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4117794 “This article argues that, as a matter of constitutional law, government agencies that engage in policing cannot collect digital data, particularly about individuals for whom there is no suspicion of… Continue Reading

How strong is your Covid immunity?

NBC News: “A newly developed blood test that measures a specific immune response in the body could help doctors gauge how much protection a person has against Covid-19, according to a new study. The test, which focuses on the part of the immune system that confers long-term protection by prompting the body to “remember” the virus,… Continue Reading

Genetic paparazzi are right around the corner, and courts aren’t ready to confront the legal quagmire of DNA theft

Via LLRX – Genetic paparazzi are right around the corner, and courts aren’t ready to confront the legal quagmire of DNA theft – Liza Vertinsky and Yaniv Heled, are law professors who study how emerging technologies like genetic sequencing are regulated. They believe that growing public interest in genetics has increased the likelihood that genetic… Continue Reading

Most of the World Breathes Unsafe Air, Taking More Than 2 Years Off Global Life Expectancy

Air Quality Life Index, June 2022 Annual Update By Michael Greenstone, Christa Hasenkopf and Ken Lee: “During the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world’s economy slowed. Yet, the global annual average particulate pollution (PM2.5) was largely unchanged from 2019 levels. At the same time, growing evidence shows air pollution—even when experienced at very… Continue Reading