I own a Fitbit. It was Fitbit's fault. Apparently, though, nobody at Slashdot thought to actually look at Fitbit's site:

We take the privacy of all Fitbit users very seriously. To address some recent concerns about logged activities of Fitbit users showing up in search engine results, we have taken several immediate steps.

Some quick background:

• As you know, Fitbit users can decide voluntarily to log their physical activities. You must do this manually and this information is not collected automatically.
• When setting up their profiles, users have had the option to make their profile activity records private, though the default setting has been to make this information public.

As of Sunday [July 3], we have taken the following steps to protect our users’ privacy:

• All activity records on Fitbit.com were hidden from view from both other users and search engines, no matter what the user’s current privacy setting. We have also updated our default settings for new users for activity sharing to “private.”
• We submitted requests to Google and Yahoo/Bing to remove any indexed user profile pages from their search engines. As a result, user profile pages and their activity records have already disappeared from Google and should disappear within several days at other search engines. Once removed, previously indexed activity records should not be accessible to the public at all from that search engine.
• For now, we have removed other personally identifiable information from users’ Fitbit profile pages regardless of privacy settings.

We are dedicated to making this the best fitness platform possible with users in full control of their data. For many people, sharing information is an important motivator for them to achieve their fitness goals. We will be in touch with our users about new choices they will have when they want to share information.

James Park

CEO, Co-Founder, Fitbit

It's sad that the sanest comment in this whole discussion comes from an Anonymous Coward.

No. We have such laws to protect others' right to live. Having the source code to a computer program, or ensuring that others do, is not, in any sense, a human right.

For the record, if you're 18–20, and in the US military, you can drink alcohol in those establishments on military property which serve it.

I doubt if billable hours are a concern. Sony needs lawyers so often, they probably have them on staff—i.e., on salary. There are a ton of lawyers who are willing to make less money if it also means having an 8–5, 5-days-a-week, job instead of a 90-hour workweek.

+1 FUTURAMA

And the Empire didn't finally fall for good until another thousand years later. Hardly "forever," but nothing to sneer at either.

Well, that's boring. And that picture doesn't look like a saucer at all!

Welcome to Slashdot. You must be new here.

Those are definitely neat, but it eliminates one of the most frequent uses of business cards: scratch paper. Unless you had a grease pencil, I guess.

I'm pretty sure it's both. Are you seriously expecting consistency from an elected official at the head of a vast bureaucracy?

Just because something existed in the 70's doesn't necessarily mean people should have known about it or that it had any impact on future developments.

You know, you're right. I am not a lawyer, but I deal with them on a day-to-day basis for my job. Many—most, even—of them are some of the nicest people on a personal level. But you start talking about legal matters with them and suddenly they are complete bastards. I don't know whether this is something inculcated in law school or what.

Because we don't. There's not a better answer to your question.

If you think the US should have a "loser pays" legal system, get elected to the Congress and introduce legislation for it.