Hibnick v. Google Inc.
Filing
121
OBJECTIONS to re 120 Proposed Order by Electronic Privacy Information Center. (Attachments: # 1 Appendix 1, # 2 Appendix 2, # 3 Appendix 3, # 4 Appendix 4, # 5 Appendix 5, # 6 Appendix 6, # 7 Appendix 7, # 8 Appendix 8, # 9 Appendix 9, # 10 Appendix 10, # 11Appendix 12, # 12 Appendix 13, # 13 Appendix 11)(Friedman, Philip) (Filed on 3/30/2011) Modified on 4/1/2011 (cv, COURT STAFF).
Appendix 5 – Consumer Action’s Application for cy pres Funds in In Re: Google
Buzz Privacy Litigation (submitted to the Rose Foundation Mar. 14, 2011)
Application Coversheet
1.
2.
Name of Applicant Organization and EIN Number:
Consumer Action
EIN 237172908
Type of organization: x 501c(3)
o Other - Please describe:
Contact Information:
Contact Person, Title Ken McEldowney, Executive Director
Address
221 Main St., Suite 480
San Francisco, CA 94105
Telephone
(415) 777-9648/510-333-4886 (cell)
Email
ken.mceldowney@consumer-action.org
3.
Financial Information:
a)
your organization’s overall annual 2011 operating budget-$3.2
million
(b)
total amount of money spent on Internet privacy or Internet
education programs in 2010$310,000
(c)
total amount of funding your organization received, if any, in
contributions from Google,
Inc. or the Google Foundation in 2010-$10,000/monthly in-kind
Google AdWords Grant
(d)
amount of funding you are requesting from this Settlement fund$1.25 million
4.
Briefly describe any of your organization’s existing policy or education programs
concerning Internet privacy issues – make sure to include the number of years you
have had programming focused on Internet privacy.
A champion of underrepresented consumers nationwide since 1971, Consumer
has included Internet privacy as one of our five core issues since 2002. Our
Internet privacy educational programs include the creation and dissemination of
quality multilingual materials, as well as outreach and training, for communitybased organizations (CBOs) to help consumers understand their rights online and
protect themselves from fraud and other injuries due to the loss of personal
privacy. We are working on Internet privacy education projects supported by
Microsoft and Visa. While our staff in DC advocates for privacy protections for
all consumers, we focus our policy work on protecting the privacy rights of lowto-moderate income consumers and people of color. We actively work to build
constructive dialogues between industry, lawmakers and advocates on privacy
policy issues.
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5.
Briefly describe the particular program that funding from this Settlement would
support and describe how it would benefit the Class by furthering policy or
education concerning Internet privacy.
Consumer Action seeks a $1.25 million grant to support a three-year Internet
privacy project that includes: the creation and online and offline distribution of
more than 250,000 consumer education publications, training of more than 300
CBO staff in five cities on how best to use these materials to provide the Internet
privacy of their constituents, Privacy Information website enhancements, a
$150,000 CBO mini-grants program and increased policy work in Washington,
DC aimed at bringing together diverse stakeholders in order to build innovative
collaborations and solutions to Internet privacy issues. The plaintiff class will
benefit from receiving updated, easy-to-read education materials, available both
online and offline and translated into key languages, on the most up-to-date topics
and issues in Internet privacy—such as using social networking wisely, privacy
while using mobile devices, and protecting sensitive information in the cloud. The
plaintiff class also will benefit from our policy work to encourage more
transparency and control for consumers online.
Send Completed Application Forms To:
grants@rosefdn.org
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1. Briefly describe existing policy and education programs concerning Internet privacy
issues – make sure to include number of years you have had programming focused on
Internet privacy.
Consumer Action has been a champion of underrepresented consumers nationwide since
1971. Internet privacy has been one of our five core issues since 2002, when we formally
established our Privacy Information Project.
Since 2002, Consumer Action has supported its privacy work with more than $1.4
million in grants from the Rose Foundation, the California Consumer Protection
Foundation, court settlements (UCAN v. Bank of America, UCAN v. Capital One and
Rockers v. eBay, Inc.) and corporate partnerships. In the last three years, we’ve spent
$800,000 on Internet privacy education and policy. Our programs have had a substantial
positive impact on consumers, helping them to become more aware, and thus better able
to make educated choices, about the risks and opportunities they may encounter online.
Education - Existing Program
Our Internet privacy education program includes the creation, production and
dissemination of quality multilingual materials through our national network of 8,000
community-based-organizations (CBOs)—an extensive reach into the digital divide
unrivaled by other organizations serving low-to-moderate income and limited-Englishspeaking consumers. In addition, we provide direct outreach and training for our CBO
partners to ensure their constituents will be able to understand their rights online and
protect themselves from fraud and other injuries due to the loss of personal privacy.
Consumer Action has a history of partnering with corporations, like Microsoft and
Verizon, to provide non-commercial educational programs to increase consumer
knowledge about Internet privacy. Our current partnership with Microsoft, allows us to
create materials on Internet safety and privacy to educate consumers on how to protect
themselves, their computers, and their children while using the Internet. Last year, a total
of 550 CBOs placed orders for 88,000 of this project’s publications. We have just started
a new project supported by Visa that will focus on mobile and on-line banking privacy.
One of Consumer Action’s core strengths—and one that makes us stand out from other
groups—is our ability to effectively reach and educate low and moderate income
consumers, people of color and people for whom English is not the primary language. All
our educational materials are free, translated into multiple languages such as Spanish,
Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese, and available both in print and online for broad access.
With the support of foundation and cy pres grants, we have created a comprehensive
collection of consumer education materials targeting key concerns in privacy, including
Leave Me Alone: Your privacy online and offline, Workplace Privacy, Freezing Your
Credit Report, Privacy and Your Credit Report and Sensitive Information: Privacy and
Your Medical Records. Since 2002, we have filled more than 5,000 CBO bulk orders for
privacy publications to be used in counseling CBO clients and members. In addition,
we’ve created special privacy issues of Consumer Action News, our quarterly newsletter
reaching 17,000 individual and CBO subscribers, to examine Internet privacy issues from
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both educational and policy viewpoints. These newsletters, written in an easy-tounderstand and straightforward way, included articles on emerging online scams
targeting children and strategies for keeping online data private, and other privacy topics.
Consumer Action’s support for CBOs working on Internet privacy isn’t limited to just
providing free publications but includes training and mini-grants. For example, in 2008
and 2009, we held train-the-trainer privacy roundtables in seven cities. Our mini-grants
enable our most active network CBOs to create innovative community-based educational
programs. By April of this year, we’ll have provided $1 million in mini-grants to support
quality community-based work on financial literacy, privacy and telecommunications.
We also help individual consumers via our free, multilingual national hotline service in
which trained advocates answer questions and assist consumers on consumer and privacy
concerns. Consumer Action’s hotline number is included on all of our publications. We
provide this assistance through our web site as well.
In 2008, with support from the Rose Foundation, Consumer Action created
www.privacy-information.org to offer consumers free, unbiased and multilingual news,
books, publications and other privacy information in one central, easy-to-use location.
Policy - Existing Program
Through our policy programs, Consumer Action has advocated for the strongest possible
privacy protections for consumers in all aspects of their online lives, including while job
searching, banking, seeking out health information, or performing other transactions that
involve sensitive data, or just generally as they interact with the World Wide Web.
Consumer Action is unique in its policy focus on protecting the privacy rights of low and
moderate-income consumers and people of color as well as consumers in general.
Our staff in Washington, DC, focuses on building a constructive dialogue between
industry and advocates for consumers on Internet privacy policy issues, meeting with
executives from Facebook, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Mozilla and Google, engaging directly
with policy makers at the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce,
participating on panels hosted by the Congressional Internet Caucus, Internet Governance
Forum and the joint US and European Union consortium TransAtlantic Consumer
Dialogue, advocating for consumers through the media in publications like the New York
Times and ComputerWorld, as well as working in coalition with key privacy advocacy
groups such as the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF) and Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Consumer Action
is also the only consumer organization to sit on the Advisory Board of the Future of
Privacy Forum, a forward-thinking policy group in Washington, D.C.
2. Briefly describe the particular program that funding from this Settlement would
support and describe how it would benefit the Class by furthering policy and education
concerning Internet privacy.
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Consumer Action seeks a grant of $1.25 million for a three-year project to support our
Internet privacy educational and policy programs. With the exception of the last year of a
three-year Rose Foundation grant for our privacy web site, Consumer Action has spent all
of the foundation and cy pres funds it had received supporting our Internet privacy work.
The $1.25 million grant we are seeking will enable us to not only continue our noncorporate supported Internet privacy work but to significantly expand it.
Education - Proposed Program
We will use our Google Buzz settlement grant to continue our past educational work on
Internet privacy, as well as to create new and innovative programs. The plaintiff class
will benefit from receiving updated, easy-to-read education materials, available both
online and offline and translated into key languages, on the latest issues in Internet
privacy, such as using social networking wisely, privacy while using mobile devices and
protecting sensitive information in the cloud.
The educational part of the project will be divided into four parts:
1. Creation and distribution of consumer education materials (modules)
Consumer Action will create three educational modules on key issues in Internet privacy, entitled
Privacy Friend or Foe? Using Social Networking Wisely; Mobile Devices: Privacy 10; and
Cloud Computing: How secure is your most sensitive data? The educational modules, written
with a keen eye to cultural sensitivity, will include brochures in English, Spanish, Chinese,
Korean and Vietnamese, PowerPoint slides, a comprehensive question-and-answer guide, a
lesson plan and interactive activities to help CBO staff address the specific needs of their clients.
Our network agencies will help us distribute these materials to more than 250,000 consumers.
2. Train-the-trainer workshops
Consumer Action will conduct five regional train-the-trainer meetings in strategically chosen
cities around the country. Each regional meeting will host up to 65 participants from a radius of
125 miles around the meeting site. These sessions will be provided completely free of charge
and travel and lodging expenses will be reimbursed. Consumer Action staff will train
participants on how to best educate their constituents using our Internet privacy materials. These
meetings will provide community trainers with the practical tools they need to help their clients
effectively protect their privacy while online. Consumer Action will train more than 300 CBO
staff.
3. Web enhancements
Consumer Action will significantly expand its Privacy Information web site with several
improvements, including: a privacy event calendar, an interactive personal privacy risk
assessment tool and integrated Facebook and Twitter feeds to keep consumers informed of
pertinent news in real-time. In addition, we will translate our Facebook page and Twitter feeds
into key languages to better accommodate the needs of our constituents.
4. Mini-grants
Consumer Action will conduct a mini-grant program for CBOs, making a total of twenty $7,500
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grants. These awards will go to groups committed to developing their own community-based
privacy education initiatives using Consumer Action’s Internet privacy materials. The minigrants will cover the actual education efforts as well as the tracking of students for three-to-six
months following the classes to see what steps were taken to protect their privacy.
Evaluation is a critical component to the success of this project. In order to ensure measurable
outcomes, we will conduct in-depth evaluation surveys on our trainings and workshops, and
track and evaluate CBOs that order our materials and receive mini-grants.
A 3-year timeline for the proposed educational programming is as follows:
Year Milestone
Y1
• Produce module Privacy Friend or Foe? Using Social Networking Wisely
- How to use popular social networks while protecting personal information
• Make interactive enhancements to www.privacy-information.org
• Translate our Facebook page and Twitter feeds into key languages
• Host 1st train-the-trainer meeting for CBO staff
• Conduct program evaluations
Y2
• Produce module Mobile Devices: Privacy 101
- Using mobile devices without revealing sensitive data while making
purchases,
playing games and utilizing location-based services
• Make interactive enhancements to www.privacy-information.org
• Host 2nd and 3rd regional meetings
• Host 1st round of mini-grant program featuring 10 grantees
• Conduct program evaluations
Y3
• Produce module Cloud Computing: How secure is your most sensitive data?
- Protect the sensitivity of your business and personal documents, health
records
and financial data while in the cloud
• Host 4th and 5th regional meetings
• Host 2nd round of mini-grant program featuring 10 grantees
• Conduct program evaluations and produce evaluation report
Policy - Proposed Program
With support from the Google Buzz settlement, Consumer Action will expand its
successful Internet privacy policy work. The plaintiff class will benefit from our work to
encourage more transparency and control for consumers online. Consumer Action’s DC
office will concentrate on areas of emerging importance in Internet privacy, including
privacy protections for mobile devices (as they begin to replace computers as the primary
source of Internet traffic), data sharing between social networking and third party
applications and the role of browsers and ad networks in furthering innovative policy
initiatives such as the “Do Not Track” mechanism. The grant will enable us to have a full
time staff person working on consumer-focused Internet privacy policy work.
We will increase our meetings with government officials to discuss the impact of privacy
violations on everyday consumers and press for solutions, negotiate with companies like
Mozilla and ad networks that have yet to support innovative solutions such as “Do Not
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Track,” and work in coalition with other groups to develop best practices for new and
emerging concerns in this space, such as Smart Grid, RFID and location-based services.
We will also pursue productive collaboration between industry and consumer advocates
through our participation on the Future of Privacy Forum Advisory Board and via public
outreach at conferences and events. As new privacy tools and services roll out, we would
continue to advocate for strong consumer protections – in government and corporate
policy – against frauds and scams.
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