Press Release
Consumer Watchdog today formally launched its new Website, Inside Google, to focus attention on the company’s activities and hold Google accountable for its actions. The sites’ URL is http://insidegoogle.com.
News Clipping
Consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog said Monday it was sending the FTC a letter urging the agency to investigate the mishap. John Simpson, the group’s consumer advocate, said he was concerned that Google’s promise to get third-parties to review the software in question was insufficient.
News Clipping
Google could announce this week that it will move SSL encryption implemented in Gmail to other services such as search. During the company’s annual shareholders meeting a question on this from John Simpson, an investor who works for Consumer Watchdog, prompted a curt “Do you get the drift of the answer?” from Google chief executive officer Eric Schmidt after Google vice president of search Marissa Mayer replied “stay tuned.” Encryption has moved to the forefront after Google’s admission last week it had collected small pieces of private information people sent through unencrypted wireless networks.
News Clipping
Perhaps the toughest shareholder question came from consumer advocate John Simpson, who asked Schmidt whether Google had agreed to a reported $700 million “kill fee” if Google’s $750 million acquisition of the mobile advertising company AdMob is rejected by government antitrust regulators. Schmidt neither confirmed or denied that number, but predicted the deal would be approved by the Federal Trade Commission, which is expected to rule in coming days.
News Clipping
Every month, Simpson comes to Washington to meet with staff on the Hill and regulatory agencies, journalists and corporate lobbyists. Simpson said he met last week with Jim Tierney, chief of the networks and technology section of the antitrust division of the Justice Department, and staffers about his petition for a broad investigation. Last year, he testified before Congress about privacy and competition concerns in Google’s book settlement.
Blog Post
Google’s controversial $750 million deal to buy mobile advertising company AdMob has raised more doubts, this time from Capitol Hill.
Blog Post
Is this how it begins?
A handful of small companies crushed by a technology giant file David v. Goliath unfair competition lawsuits. A leading Silicon Valley antitrust expert lends his legal brains to the seemingly hopeless cause. Soon, a company that thinks it is all powerful and can do no wrong is forced to face up to the reality that it does not play well with others.
Press Release
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Consumer Watchdog today called on the U.S. Department of Justice to launch a broad antitrust action against Google seeking remedial action that could include breaking the Internet giant into separate companies.
Blog Post
More concerns about Google’s $750 million proposed deal to buy mobile advertising company AdMob were raised Tuesday.
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) wrote Jonathan Leibowitz, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, warning that the proposed deal “raises important competition issues which should be reviewed carefully…”
News Clipping
This is a fun story. Andrew McLaughlin, formerly Google’s top lobbyist and currently the deputy CTO in the White House, where he advises President Barack Obama on Internet policy, apparently was aghast to find his…
