Very very very very rarely does that occur. We hear about the hundreds of cases where that happens, and the potential thousands of cases where it might be happening, but not the billions of cases where it's not happening. It's a non-threat. I'm more likely to be mauled by a rampaging hippo. And if you think it is a threat, just unplug the webcam cord from your laptop's motherboard, or tape over the camera until you need it.
Most of those occurrences are from script kiddies accessing unsecured routers.
I will assume you are too gentle-manly to know:) :- that these big guns in google, Microsoft, Apple... are sharks, they are nasty and brutal business people.
Absolutely. And if you read my posts, you'll see that the only reason I consider Google and Apple to be more of a threat than Microsoft, is because Apple and Google are more focused and organized.
Never the less, Apple and Google, to the best of my knowledge, don't spy on people through their webcams. The risk vs reward of that business action is too high.
Instead, they spy in ten dozen different ways. But webcam spying is very infrequent, and is mostly A) Done by nation-state actors (Israel, Russia, USA, China, etc...) targeted at specific individuals or organizations, and B) Mostly done by script-kiddies who don't care who they target, and are basically just looking for unlocked doors in a neighborhood, and basic security prevents that.
When they consider data gathering actions (including snooping), moral high ground is not one of the criteria. Moral high ground is the thing politicians do to pretend they are compassionate and are on the side of the masses
I've mentioned nothing of morals. From a business standpoint, Microsoft, Google, etc... don't spy on people's webcams.
They spy on people's Skype conversations and Google Hangout conversations and Apple Facetime conversations (nearly zero risk, because the data is already on their servers and impossible for third-parties to check). But not on people's turned-off webcams, where any programmer worth his salt can detect it with freely available programs most are already using for their own projects.
"Is there a loophole that can be exploited in the law?" - Loopholes don't matter here. If Google was caught using turned off webcams in people's laptops, the outrage would be high enough that Google would be sued for billions of dollars, regardless of what the law currently says, because it'd end up at the Supreme Court which would invalidate old laws and reinterpret the law how they please to do what they (the Supreme Court) thinks is morally correct.
"Technologically, Is it possible?"
Yes, absolutely. It's been possible since the very moment webcams were hooked to computers. And it's been actually done for at least ten years.
"can we get away with it?"
No they can't.
"Can we cover our backs in the ToS?"
No they can't. If their ToS says, "You authorize us to violate your privacy in whatever way we please", people can still sue, and the Supreme Court can still cost Google billions of dollars, AND the consumer-protection side of the government will perk up because they get to over-act to prove they are doing something, AND congress will introduce new legislation. All three branches of our government (judicial, legislative, executive) will curb-stomp Google's face in.
They'd get screwed from three different angles. Four, when the media lambasts them, and five when the consumers freak out, six when vigilantes take action as well. Google would be caught in a veritable maelstrom of assaults on multiple battlefronts (consumers leaving services, consumer lawsuits, government lawsuits, government fees without lawsuits from different branches, congress regulation, vigilante hacking, media assaults on the Google brand, etc... etc...). They know it's not worth the risks to take leaps across the moral line, if they can just take tiny steps across the line gradually and not get caught.
The fact that most people think that this kind of snooping is rarely done is even the more reason they will exploit it, as most people would not think it necessary to disconnect webcam like you suggested
You don't understand my previous posts.
Immense amounts of snooping is done. Absurd amounts of invasion of privacy. To everyone. I already said that.
But I said that Google and Facebook and Microsoft and Apple using laptop webcams to spy on individuals is unrealistic because it'd be stupidly high risk, stupidly high damage if caught, and stupidly low profits.
I also already said that NSA and script kiddies occasionally use webcams to spy. By "occasionally" I mean statistically the likelihood of any one of us being spied on by our webcams is far less likely than the other real, actual, current, known, spying that is happening on us.
Why worry about plane crashes, which you as an individual can't control and which are statistically unlikely, instead of worrying about car crashes, which you can control and are statistically likely.
To use another poor analogy, you're focusing your rifle scope on a wolf that's hundreds of meters away and no immediate threat, not realizing a bear is right behind you. Point your gun at the nearest and greatest threat.
