Inside Google

SANTA MONICA, CA – Consumer Watchdog today filed a formal complaint asking the New York Joint Commission On Public Ethics to remove Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt from the state’s Smart Schools Commission because of conflicts of interest that violate the state’s Public Officials Law.

Google’s privacy invading wearable computing device, Glass, has been taking a lot of well deserved hits lately, and the Internet giant seems to have launched a PR campaign to bolster the device’s plummeting image. Over the weekend Google sponsored “Glass Night Out” at various locations across the country.

SANTA MONICA, CA — Consumer Watchdog today backed six broad policy recommendations outlined in the White House report on Big Data and praised the report for identifying potential dangers of discrimination and threats to privacy in what the report called “a world where data collection will be increasingly ubiquitous, multidimensional, and permanent.”

SANTA MONICA, CA — Google said it will stop reading the Gmail accounts of 30 million students who use Google Apps For Education, spinning the announcement as “protecting students,” when in fact the change came only after questions were raised about the legality of the practice, Consumer Watchdog said today.

SANTA MONICA, CA — Consumer Watchdog, a national public interest group, today expressed deep concern about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s appointment of Google Chairman Eric Schmidt to the New York Smart Schools Commission to advise the state on how to invest proceeds from the proposed $2 billion bond act and bring technology into classrooms statewide.

A settlement has been reached in the $3 billion class action lawsuit on behalf of 64,000 high tech workers who charged that Silicon Valley tech titans like Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and Sergey Brin illegally conspired to keep their wages down.

WASHINGTON, DC – Google spent $3.82 million lobbying federal lawmakers and regulators during the first quarter of 2014, making it the top spender among 15 top technology and telecommunications companies, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosure forms Consumer Watchdog said today.

SANTA MONICA, CA – A proposed settlement in Europe’s antitrust investigation of Google that establishes a monitor for five years to ensure that the Internet giant keeps its promises under the deal, does not actually obligate Google to do anything in response to a request from the “Monitoring Trustee,” Consumer Watchdog said today and called for the “deeply flawed” proposed settlement to be modified.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA– A federal magistrate has denied a motion from Google in the Wi-Spy class action suit that plaintiffs said wrongfully would have blocked lawyers’ access to data Google’s Street View cars gathered from private Wi-Fi Networks.

SANTA MONICA, CA – Consumer Watchdog today urged Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to press forward with an antitrust case against Google for unfairly manipulating search results favoring its own services damaging both competitors and consumers.