Jane C. Horvath is Google’s Senior Privacy Counsel. In August 2007 Ms. Horvath joined Google and serves their interest full-time. Well, why did the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sue the U.S. Department of Justice for documents between the DOJ and Google?
According to EFF: “Jane C. Horvath was named the DOJ’s first Chief Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer in February of 2006. At that time, Google was fighting a massive DOJ subpoena asking for the text of every query entered into the search engine over a one-week period. The DOJ request — part of a court battle over the constitutionality of a law regulating adult materials on the Internet — ignited a national debate about Internet privacy.”
So if I understand this correctly, EFF is seeking any communications Ms. Horvath may have had with Google and perhaps the details of job change. Well I think EFF is headed in the wrong direction. If you look at Ms. Horvath’s resume you’ll see she has served as a privacy advocate for some time. Prior to her appointment at DOJ, Ms. Horvath was at Privacy Laws & Business, a privacy consulting firm based in the United Kingdom, where she was the Director of their Washington, D.C. office. She was responsible for expanding the privacy consulting operations of this UK based business into the U.S. Her responsibilities focused on advising U.S. companies on interpreting international privacy trends and managing their business in light of such privacy trends and laws and assisting in the development of relevant programs for U.S. roundtable discussions and other services.
Ms. Horvath was formerly Assistant General Counsel of America Online, Inc. and General Counsel of Digital City, Inc., a subsidiary of America Online, where she assisted in the drafting of the first privacy policy for the America Online Service. She also was a guest lecturer on protecting the privacy of AOL members at the Association of Attorneys’ General Meeting in 1996.
Prior to working at America Online, Ms. Horvath was an Associate at Hogan & Hartson, where her focus was on the representation of high technology clients. Ms. Horvath started her legal career at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
Electronic Frontier Foundation v. Department of Justice - FOIA Lawsuit
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