Press Release
Washington, DC – Consumer Watchdog today took Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt to task today over remarks made to The Washington Post in which he claimed Google should not be the subject of antitrust review because its services are “free” and made derogatory remarks about government officials being slow, backward and greedy.
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Google has been widely known to scan the contents of Gmail messages to deliver targeted text ads. While some don’t mind, others believe scanning e-mail to deliver more relevant ads is an invasion of privacy. John Simpson, spokesman for the non-profit advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, isn’t convinced the search giant will necessarily stop there. “Part of the problem is that Google collects and stores tremendous amounts of data about its users,” Simpson says. “The only assurance we have about what Google’s intentions are boils down to ‘Trust us.'”
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“Much of Google’s privacy problems stem from the company’s culture,” says John Simpson, spokesman for the non-profit Consumer Watchdog. “They hire like-minded engineers who push the creepy line, then apologize when they get caught with their fingers in the cookie jar.”
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In an internal memo first obtained by the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, the city in December said Google and its partner Computer Sciences Corp. repeatedly committed to and then missed deadlines to solve data security issues that were preventing the Los Angeles Police Department from moving onto Google’s system.
Press Release
WASHINGTON, DC — Consumer Watchdog today asked the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee to investigate Google’s misrepresentations about its “cloud computing” services as the Internet giant has tried to sell them to the federal government, as well as state and municipal governments.
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Consumer Watchdog’s scorecard is full of “evil” tally marks against Google. Some claim that Microsoft is spreading FUD, but legal woes facing Google seem to disagree that Google hasn’t crossed creepy line.
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John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog welcomed the FTC settlement but said Google “needs to be punished and feel pain on its bottom line. Nothing will completely stop Google from invading users’ privacy until it gets hit where it hurts, its bank accounts,” Simpson said.
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Consumer Watchdog, a group that has been a sharp critic of Google’s privacy practices in the past, is at it again. The Santa Monica, Calif.-based consumer advocacy group has placed an ad on a 540-square-foot digital display in New York’s Times Square to promote an animated video on YouTube that depicts Google CEO Eric Schmidt as an ice cream truck driver secretly spying on children.
Press Release
SANTA MONICA, CA – Consumer Watchdog’s InsideGoogle.com has taken its online privacy campaign to New York’s Times Square, where it has purchased a 540 sq. ft. Jumbotron digital advertisement promoting an animated video satirizing Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s attitude toward consumer privacy.
Blog Post
Google has announced that it is now offering privacy-friendly SSL encryption on its search engine, becoming the first major company to offer the protection. The company deserves credit and others who want to do more than pay lip service to privacy should immediately follow Google’s lead.
