Inside Google

Has Google taken a page from Microsoft’s evil history and started using the same anticompetitive tactics that landed the Redmond, WA., software company in antitrust trouble in the U.S. and Europe? A exclusive report in The New York Post says that’s exactly what the Federal Trade Commission is considering in its major antitrust investigation of the Internet giant.

Consumer Watchdog president Jamie Court has given Los Angeles city council members an impassioned speech about the failings of its Google Apps contract, even though the meeting to discuss the issue has been moved to next week.

SANTA MONICA, CA – Google Apps can be dangerous, Consumer Watchdog warned today and the public interest group said Los Angeles has been responsible for “giving the first imprint of credibility and acceptance to a program that has failed Los Angeles and other communities with frightening consequences.”

Consumer Watchdog has long been a vocal and sometimes over-the-top critic of Google and with questions rising over the implementation of Google Apps in Los Angeles’ government, the Santa Monica-based group is at it again.

“The fact is the company is facing a well-deserved antitrust investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and wants to escape any consequences for its anti-competitive behavior,” said John M. Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project. “They’ve got billions in profits stashed in off-shore tax havens and are pressing for a tax-holiday to bring it into the United States.”

The City of Los Angeles’ transition to Google Apps for its 30,000 employees apparently hasn’t been going smoothly, according to letters obtained by the group Consumer Watchdog. It seems Google and contractor CSC haven’t been able to fulfill the LAPD’s security requirements, and now the city is asking for some of its money back.

Los Angeles CTO Randi Levin said Thursday that Google Apps is “working fine” for the majority of city employees, and that the city’s desire to cancel the cloud-based e-mail suite in the Los Angeles Police Department and other agencies that handle criminal justice data is a result of technology outpacing public policy. Levin’s remarks came […]

Google may need to act quickly to salvage its $7.25 million deal to migrate the city of Los Angeles to its Google Apps platform, following news that the delayed rollout is still not completed. The city approved the deal two years ago, but in July 2010 it was disclosed that delays had prevented full implementation.

Two years after the City of Los Angeles approved a $7.25 million deal to move its e-mail and productivity infrastructure to Google Apps, the migration has still not been completed because the Los Angeles Police Department and other agencies are unsatisfied with Google’s security related to the handling of criminal history data.

Los Angeles is delaying until 2012 the migration of email to Google’s cloud computing suite for thousands of law enforcement officials because the system doesn’t currently meet security requirements — a blow for the tech titan as it battles rivals for government cloud supremacy.