Inside Google

Google is still the 800-pound gorilla

Google acted again Tuesday to ensure that will be a dominant player in the increasingly important mobile market.  It clearly wants to avoid what happened to other tech…

What’s Google’s next plan for mobile?

Tuesday is a big day for those trying to figure out just what Google is planning for the increasingly important mobile phone market.

The Internet giant has…

Press Release

Two Consumer Groups Ask FTC To Block Google’s $750 Million Purchase Of AdMob

Deal To Buy Mobile Advertising Company Is Anti-Competitive And Raises Privacy Concerns

WASHINGTON, DC — Two consumer groups today asked the Federal Trade
Commission to block Google’s $750 million deal to buy AdMob, a mobile
advertising company, on anti-trust grounds. In addition, the groups
said, the proposed acquisition raises privacy concerns that the
Commission must address. In a joint letter to the FTC, Consumer Watchdog and the Center for
Digital Democracy (CDD) said Google is simply buying its way to
dominance in the mobile advertising market, diminishing competition to
the detriment of consumers.

Google’s privacy PR meaningless until CEO Schmidt gets it

Last Friday Google’s Christine Chen, posted an article about the Internet giant’s approach to privacy, complete with a set of 20 slides, but such efforts are nothing but empty public relations gestures until CEO Eric Schmidt demonstrates he gets it.

Can Google Be Trusted? No: The Search Engine Must Do More To Protect Private Data

Few doubt that Internet giant Google is succeeding in its audacious
corporate mission "to organize the world’s information and make it
universally accessible and useful." The problem is that the mission
puts Google directly at odds with our privacy rights, and Google
appears unwilling to give consumers enough control.

Comparing Democratic, GOP fundraisers

Both the Democratic and Republican Senate campaign committees are holding big fundraisers — the Democrats today at Google headquarters and the Republicans on Monday and Tuesday at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, DC. Consumer Watchdog objected to the Democratic event.

Press Release

Consumer Watchdog Calls On Senators To Skip Fundraiser Set For Google Headquarters

Public Policy Should Be Decided In Hearing Room With Sunlight And Transparency, Group Says

SANTA MONICA, CA — Warning that a Democratic Senate Campaign Committee
Fundraiser scheduled to be held at Google’s headquarters in Mountain
View, CA, on Friday created an appearance of a conflict of interest,
Consumer Watchdog  called on the seven Senators scheduled to appear not
to attend.

Google Dashboard Is Small Step For User Control, Consumer Watchdog Says

Group Calls for ‘Make-Me-Anonymous’ Button On Home Page

SANTA MONICA, CA — The new Google Dashboard touted by the Internet
giant as offering users “transparency, choice and control” of user data
stored by the company doesn’t give consumers adequate control over
protecting their information from Google’s marketing machine, Consumer
Watchdog said today. Consumer Watchdog applauded the company for giving consumers a single
place to go to manage data, but said Google needed to give consumers
the ability to stop being tracked by the company and to delete
information associated with their computer’s IP address from the Google
servers.

LA Council Insists On Added Security Breach Penalty As It Oks Move To Google’s ‘Cloud’

Project Demands Close Monitoring To Guarantee Citizen’s Privacy Consumer Watchdog Says

Los Angeles, CA — The Los Angeles City Council voted today to move the
city’s 30,000 email users to a system provided by Google, but only
after a provision that the city be compensated if there is security
breach in the data held on Google’s servers.

Con: Why Los Angeles Should Worry About Google’s E-mail System

Google wants the city of Los Angeles to switch its 30,000 e-mail users
to an Internet-based system it operates, but rather than address real
questions about the security of such "cloud computing" systems the
Internet giant changes its story depending on its audience.