Press Release
Internet Giant’s Expenses Soar 240 Percent, Topping $5.03 Million In 1st Quarter
WASHINGTON DC — Google continues to pump record amounts into its effort to influence federal legislators and policymakers, spending $5.03 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2012, a 240 percent increase from the same quarter a year ago, according to new disclosures filed with the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives.
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“Whenever Google raises the cry of defending Internet freedom, it’s always really about what’s best for Google’s business model,” John Simpson, consumer advocate at Consumer Watchdog, told TechNewsWorld.
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John M. Simpson, the director of Consumer Watchdog’s privacy project, said even if people understand what data they’re sharing on social networks, they don’t expect it to be “reconfigured so they can be hit upon. Just because something is technologically possible is no justification for necessarily doing it,” he said.
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“However Google configures this, it’s clear that it’s all about competing with Facebook and keeping users logged into Google’s services,” John Simpson, consumer advocate at Consumer Watchdog, told TechNewsWorld. “Google is terrified of Facebook’s gains and is doing everything possible to fight them.”
Press Release
SANTA MONICA, CA – The Obama Administration’s blueprint to protect online privacy with a “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights” unveiled today could provide meaningful protections, Consumer Watchdog said, but warned that the test of its effectiveness will come as the implementation unfolds. The nonprofit, nonpartisan public interest group also voiced a concern that an announced Internet industry commitment to honor “Do Not Track” could be aimed at undercutting an effort by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to create a strict Do Not Track standard.
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In a Jan. 24 article in USA Today, Consumer Watchdog spokesman John Simpson criticized the way Facebook is handling the switch to Timeline. Including online giant Google in his comments, he said such companies are showing “a complete disregard for their users’ interests and concerns” and taking “an uncommonly arrogant approach not usually seen in business, where the companies believe they can do whatever they want with our data, whenever and however they want to do it.”
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Consumer Watchdog’s John Simpson points out that personalized advertisements targeted directly to a specific user, based on user-collected information, can be “a substantial amount” more lucrative than just an anonymous ad. And with all the information Google can collect about your interests from your searches, your Google Docs, and your favorite YouTube videos, they can figure out pretty specifically what ads they should show you. “They are positioning this as streamlining privacy,” Simpson says. “But that’s just PR. It’s all about better targeting for advertisers.”
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“It’s hard to predict exactly what sort of gaffe they’ll do next, but it would not surprise me if there is yet another one,” said John Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project, noting some concerns over Facebook’s recent expansion of its Timeline feature, which makes it easier to visualize, share, and view users’ profile history.
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Even as a private company, Facebook had no problem pushing the envelope, Consumer Watchdog spokesperson Carmen Balber told the E-Commerce Times. “Facebook is already treading dangerous waters as far as privacy rights are concerned. The pressure to monetize consumers’ user data will be greater when there are shareholders to satisfy.”
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The announcement of the changes sparked concern among privacy watchdogs both in the United States and the European Union. “Consumers’ online privacy is being eroded,” growled John Simpson, a consumer advocate at Consumer Watchdog.
