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The United Kingdom privacy watchdog has finally joined eighteen other nations in investigating Google for its Wi-Spying, the Internet giant’s clandestine acquisition of personal user information from wireless networks while taking photographs for its Street View mapping service.
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In a move that’s either deeply pragmatic or deeply cynical, Silicon Valley’s most openly pro-Democratic company shifted course this fall and gave more than half its political action committee donations to Republicans. Google Inc. NetPAC gave Republicans $57,500 between July and October, the group’s filing this week with the Federal Election Committee shows. That’s 55% of the $105,000 total contributions; Democrats received $47,500 or 45%.
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Google Inc. has dodged $3.1 billion in taxes in the last three years, reports Jesse Drucker of Bloomberg, giving new meaning to CEO Eric Schmidt’s recent comment to analysts: “We love cash.” The question now is how much longer Goolge can continue to draw on its positive image as the “Don’t-Be-Evil” company.
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Google violated Canadian privacy laws when its Street View cars gathered data from private wireless networks, Canada’s privacy commissioner said on Tuesday. More important, the investigation found a company with a lackadaisical commitment to privacy among its engineers. Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said the private data was gathered because of a ” a careless error – one that could easily have been avoided.”
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Struggling to find the definition for a word? Simply type “define: XXXX”, where XXXX is the word you’re asking about, into Google’s search box. Over at the New Yorker in an article called “Don’t Be Evil,” Simon Rich notes Google’s ability to serve up definitions. Then he has a little fun.
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Support for Do Not Track Me legislation is growing in Washington with the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission telling ABC’s Good Morning America on Friday that “one of the things we are thinking about is a Do Not Track List.”
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Internet giant Google is leading led the tech sector in acquisitions buying almost twice the number of companies as second place IBM. The data, compiled by CB insights, shows Google has announced 23 acquisitions through Sept. 24 compared to IBM’s 12
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The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) announced today that it intends to award Google a $27 million sole source contract for visualization technology, the largest known contract between the Internet firm and a national security agency.
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Amidst a surge in governmental requests for private user data, Google’s openness effort is lagging, as the release of Google’s second transparency report shows. The report, released Tuesday, is a welcome sign of the search engine’s commitment to openness, but it is not a big improvement over the initial report last April.
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I was at Google’s DC headquarters yesterday afternoon for the first event of AdWeek 2010 – the advertising industry’s annual conference in DC. I don’t know if one company always dominates the event, but this year seems to be an all-Google affair. As the only advertiser that’s a “platinum sponsor,” Google hosted, sat on, or was the topic of five panels — more indication that Google is king in the online ad world.
