Inside Google

Urges ‘Engineer Doe’ Be Given Immunity For Testifying About His Role
SANTA MONICA, CA – Consumer Watchdog today called for a Senate hearing into the Google Wi-Spy scandal and urged that a key figure known in a Federal Communications Commission report as “Engineer Doe” be granted immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony.

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.

According to a report by ProPublica, the FCC legally could have fined Google up to $337,500. Mashable has contacted the FCC for comment on how the fees were calculated and will update this article with any response.

John Simpson, director of the Privacy Project at the Consumer Watchdog group, said he was pleased the FCC derided Google “for its blatantly obstructionist violations, but $25,000 is chump change to an Internet giant like Google. By willfully violating the Commission’s orders, Google has managed to continue to hide the truth about Wi-Spy. Google wants everyone else’s information to be accessible, but in a demonstration of remarkable hypocrisy, stonewalls and keeps everything about itself secret.”

“Whenever Google raises the cry of defending Internet freedom, it’s always really about what’s best for Google’s business model,” John Simpson, consumer advocate at Consumer Watchdog, told TechNewsWorld.

SANTA MONICA, CA – Consumer Watchdog today demanded that the Federal Communications Commission release an uncensored version of its highly redacted decision to fine Google $25,000 for deliberately impeding and delaying its investigation of the Wi-Spy scandal.

John Simpson with Consumer Watchdog, which along with Chester’s group and other privacy advocates is backing the EFF/Mozilla proposal, argues that the industry’s proposal “has so many loopholes it’s meaningless.”

Consumer Watchdog urged the Commerce Department to propose its own privacy legislation and push Congress to pass it. “Calls for action in policy papers are easy. The test of commitment is to translate high-minded principles like the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights into real legislative language,” the group wrote. It urged the Commerce Department to propose the legislation before moving forward with negotiations with Web companies.

John M. Simpson, the director of Consumer Watchdog’s privacy project, said even if people understand what data they’re sharing on social networks, they don’t expect it to be “reconfigured so they can be hit upon. Just because something is technologically possible is no justification for necessarily doing it,” he said.

Says Proposed “Multi-Stakeholder Process” Must Be Fair, Transparent and Credible

SANTA MONICA, CA – Consumer Watchdog today called on the U.S. Department of Commerce to offer legislation to implement the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights proposed by the Administration.