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Jamie Court of Consumer Watchdog noted that Mozilla, Microsoft and Apple are incorporating a mechanism into their Web browsers to send a “Do Not Track” message but there is currently no legal requirement that a website honor the request.
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“Consumers should have the right to choose if their private information…is collected, analyzed and profiled by companies tracking activities online,” John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog said.
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“We strongly believe that any privacy bill should direct the Federal Trade Commission to require and enforce a “Do Not Track Me” mechanism. Consumers should have the right to use the Internet and mobile devices with confidence that their privacy choices are respected, and with anonymity if they choose,” John M. Simpson, Consumer Watchdog president, wrote in a letter to Senators McCain and Kerry.
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Google is in hot water again — or it will be if Consumer Watchdog can persuade the public to ask Congress to take action over the Google “Wi-Spy scandal.” Additionally, Consumer Watchdog published a report, Lost in the Cloud: Google and the US Government, that highlights Google’s relationship with NSA and claims the search giant has also “inappropriately benefited” from close and secretive relationships with other government agencies.
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Consumer Watchdog, a group which has been highly critical of Google’s privacy practices, condemned the agreement to settle the issue through negotiations and called for congressional hearings on the subject.
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A consumer advocacy group has hired a van to drive around the streets of Washington D.C. playing an animated cartoon lampooning Google’s outgoing CEO Eric Schmidt for previous statements he’s made concerning Internet privacy.
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Consumer Watchdog receives no funding from Microsoft or any other competitor of Google, John Simpson, consumer advocate with the group, told PC World. “We don’t have any relationship with Microsoft at all … We don’t take any of their money,” he said. Simpson said the group has decided to focus on Google’s privacy practices because the company’s services serve as a gateway to the Internet for many people. If the group can push Google, “without a doubt the dominant Internet company,” to change its privacy practices, other companies will follow suit, he said.
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“We do not need a technological arms race,” said John M. Simpson, director of CW’s Inside Google project, “A simple ‘Do Not Track Me’ message sent from a browser that advertisers would be required by law to honor would do that.”
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Picture a 540-square-foot animated ad, a cartoon video mocking Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt; now picture it running twice an hour, 36 times per day, in New York’s Times Square. Consumer Watchdog has launched a huge and very public campaign against Google, highlighting its concerns over Google’s privacy policies and the need for Congress to enact a national ‘Do Not Track Me’ list. The massive cartoon digital advertisement is titled “Don’t Be Evil?” The avatar-style animation features Schmidt driving an ice cream truck and offering “free” ice cream while he secretly spies on children.
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Santa Monica-based Consumer Watchdog, however, said that while the new broadband proposal “pays lip service to the idea of net neutrality,” it would actually “completely undermine the open and free Internet we enjoy.” John M. Simpson, consumer advocate with the nonpartisan, nonprofit public interest group, said there are two main problems with the proposal.
