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California-based Google critic Consumer Watchdog called Google’s sweeping changes a “spy policy” rather than a privacy policy, an allusion to the fact that the move will help Google funnel data on users in one larger silo for targeted ads.
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This privacy practice changes will likely also provoke protests from the Electronic Information Privacy Center, which is currently opposing Search, plus your world, as well as the Consumer Watchdog agency.
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Consumer Watchdog is one such organization that took umbrage to Google’s lobbying spend, which is up 88 percent from 2010. The consumer advocate said Google has abandoned its “Don’t Be Evil” roots by buying into “Washington’s corrupt “cash and carry” political system.
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That answer isn’t satisfactory for privacy pundits such as Consumer Watchdog’s John M. Simpson. “Google’s refusal to give data gathered by its Street View cars from private WiFi networks to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal underscores the need for a Congressional hearing,” Simpson said. “What is Google hiding?
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Google watchdogs for the Consumer Watchdog praised the Commission’s move but lamented the lack of such scrutiny of the search engine in the U.S. “It’s long been clear that Google unfairly uses its dominance in search to benefit its own services,” said John M. Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog’s Inside Google project. “I’m pleased with the European announcement, but this is a U.S. company and it is past time for our authorities to act decisively.”
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Web consumers are concerned about Google’s collection of data over wireless networks, but still give the search engine and Web services provider a favorable rating of 74 percent. That’s the latest from a poll conducted by Google watchers Consumer Watchdog and Grove Insight, which also found citizens are concerned about their privacy.
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Meanwhile, Consumer Watchdog said July 8 that Google’s WiSpy snooping could have sucked up and recorded communications from members of Congress. The consumer advocacy group said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., chair of the Intelligence Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Committee, has at least one wireless network in her Washington, D.C., home that could have been breached by Google.
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Consumer groups and privacy watchdogs suspicious of Google Creep — its growing size and extension on the Web — are looking at Google’s moves in Washington, D.C., with the flinty enthusiasm of fire and brimstone preachers.
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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…
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Indeed, privacy advocates, such as John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog, argued Google’s gesture with Dashboard was just a straw man and that if the company really wanted to help it would allow users to prevent search information from being logged or to prevent Google from tracking a user’s online activity while surfing the Web.
