Google Hating Mississippi Attorney General Sues Company… With Ammo From EFF
As far as I can tell, the FTC has done nothing with the EFF’s complaint. But now it appears that (without naming EFF), Jim Hood has decided to jump in to the legal waters and claim that Google is violating its pledge on student data privacy.
It feels like someone in Hood’s office (again, perhaps with some nudging from friends at the MPAA) decided that it would be a neat trick to use the EFF’s own complaint against Google to go after Google yet again. It most likely will mean that EFF won’t oppose Jim Hood as it did last time around. However, taking a step back and looking at the actual complaint, it’s difficult to see how it will stick. As stated above, the organizations that created the very pledge in the first place have claimed that EFF is wrong (and are now saying that Hood is wrong), and that Google complies with the pledge itself. This also seems like a weird issue for Hood to focus on for any other reason than because he wants to attack Google. In fact, it’s questionable how this is anything but an Attorney General using his position for something of a personal vendetta against a company he dislikes.
TechDirt
1/18/17
Magnolia Tribune
