Archive | Author: Byron Acohido

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Data flowing through the Web have translated into a candy store for criminals. It’s easier than ever for even low-skilled hackers to spread infections via e-mail, Facebook and Twitter postings and corrupted Google search results — and take full control of Web-connected PCs. And those risks are intensifying with rising use of smartphones and mobile devices to access the Web. “A smartphone is more appropriately called a spyphone,” says John Simpson, spokesman for Consumer Watchdog, a non-profit advocacy group. “The mobile world is like the wild west.”

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John Simpson, spokesman for non-profit advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, says Schmidt “has put his foot so far in his mouth, so frequently, about privacy that it got him kicked upstairs.” Adds Simpson: “Larry Page stepping in as CEO is a great step, if he remembers where he came from and what the company stood for when he co-founded it.”

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Reback says it’s no secret that Microsoft was a member of the Open Book Alliance, a group formed to challenge Google over book authors’ rights. Other members of that alliance included Amazon, Yahoo, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, the Internet Archive, the National Writers Union, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Small Press Distribution and the Special Libraries Association.

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Last April, Consumer Watchdog published this report, titled Traffic Report: How Google Is Squeezing Out Competitors and Muscling Into New Markets. The group formally asked the Justice Department to launch an antitrust probe of the search giant. But the European Commission beat their U.S. counterparts to the punch. “I welcome the European action, but Google is a U.S. Company and it’s long past time for our authorities to launch an investigation,” says Consumer Watchdog spokesman John Simpson.

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For the first nine months of 2010, Google spent $3.92 million, approaching the $4.03 million the search giant spent wooing federal officials in all of 2009, Senate disclosure records show. “Google has a group of well-connected lobbyists and is willing to spend freely to influence federal lawmakers and regulators,” says John M. Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog’s Inside Google Project. “They appear to be on track to spend a total of $5 million to peddle influence this year.”

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