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.
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.
Blog Post
What if Google, the master of the cloud computing universe and the Internet’s information monopolist, were to buy Intel, Apple, or IBM? Would we want the company that controls information outside of our computers all along the Internet to also have control over a principal computer hardware maker and its patents?
Blog Post
A poll by Consumer Watchdog found that 90 percent of Americans want legislation to protect their online privacy, and 80 percent support a Do Not Track mechanism. Another 86 percent want a single-click button on their browsers that makes them anonymous when they search online.
News Clipping
Why should iPhone and Android users have to worry about being spied on by their smart phones? Shouldn’t we be able to say no to some of California’s biggest companies, Google and Facebook, when they violate our privacy daily by tracking us online and collecting massive amounts of our private information without our explicit consent?
Press Release
SANTA MONICA, CA — Consumer Watchdog today said Google used deceptive and unfair trade practices in marketing its “cloud computing” services to government entities and asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate.
Blog Post
The strong buzz in Washington, DC is that Google CEO Eric Schmidt is President Obama’s top choice for Commerce Secretary and an appointment is coming soon. The CEO who made billions collecting our personal information online and serving us up to advertisers, the guy who created online privacy problems, would head the federal agency responsible for developing and executing the administration’s online privacy policies.
Press Release
Washington, DC — Consumer Watchdog warned President Obama in a letter today about the dire consequences for consumers worldwide of appointing Google CEO Eric Schmidt Commerce Secretary.
Blog Post
Google’s grand experiment in photographing the world’s places for Google Maps has taken its “street view” cameras off-road with new hi-tech tricycles equipped with 360 degree view cameras to photograph the back roads, parks, college paths and inner sanctums of our world. The engineer’s latest design raises the question: What will Google be capturing on its back-road tour that people don’t want seen?
Google CEO Eric Schmidt will be leaving the CEO’s office and founder Larry Page will be stepping in. The question is whether this is a signal from the Internet Goliath that Schmidt’s missteps and misstatements about online privacy are no longer company policy.
