Inside Google

News broke over the weekend that Federal Trade Commission staff is calling for the Commission to bring an antitrust case against Google for abusing its dominance in search, an action Consumer Watchdog first called for more than two years ago.

Consumer privacy also is at risk through the new legislation, says John Simpson, privacy project supervisor for the nonprofit advocacy group Consumer Watchdog. California’s new driverless-auto law “gives the user no control over what data will be gathered and how the information will be used,” Simpson tells WardsAuto. “That’s where we have a problem.”

“Google has demonstrated an ability to out-maneuver government regulators repeatedly and ride roughshod over the privacy rights of consumers. Google continues to be disingenuous about its practices,” says John Simpson, privacy project director at US organization Consumer Watchdog.

One of the things you hear when companies try to minimize the impact of privacy violations is an attempt to claim there was no financial harm to consumers. However, in an interesting development the Federal Trade Commission is now publicly estimating that Google’s hack around Apple’s Safari browser privacy settings earned the Internet giant up to $ 4 million.

Santa Monica, California — October 1, 2012 — Last week, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a driverless car law into effect at a ceremony at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. According to advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, the law poses threats to safety and privacy.

With all that technology at work, John Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog’s privacy project, says manufacturers will have to let the public know in writing how much data about them and their movements is being collected by the driverless vehicle.

Consumer Watchdog is calling for ICANN to keep a close eye on enormous corporations such as Google and Amazon, and to reject applications made to buy new Top Level Domains (TLDs) in bulk.

Says Control of New Strings Could Threaten Free Internet SANTA MONICA, CA  – Consumer Watchdog has called on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to reject applications from Google and Amazon to buy control of huge swaths of the Internet by purchasing new generic Top Level Domains. In an open letter to […]

Consumer Watchdog, a consumer-rights group, has expressed reservations about the cars on privacy grounds, saying they would allow Google to gather personal information about passengers.

Consumer groups charge Google and other companies are really only interested in using the on-board computers to track people’s movements like on the Web.