Press Release
SANTA MONICA, CA — The Federal Trade Commission’s two-page letter ending its probe of the Google Wi-Spy scandal is premature and wrong, Consumer Watchdog said today, and leaves the American public with no official full account of the Internet giant’s repeated invasions of consumer privacy.
News Clipping
Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group, called the F.T.C.’s decision “premature and wrong. Once again, Google, with its myriad of government connections, gets a free pass,” John M. Simpson, director of the group’s Inside Google Project, said in a statement.
Blog Post
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.
Press Release
SANTA MONICA, CA — Consumer Watchdog welcomed three new steps Google said it is implementing to protect consumers’ privacy in response to the Wi-Spying scandal, but challenged the Internet giant to prove the measures are more than a public relations ploy.
Blog Post
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%.
Press Release
SANTA MONICA, CA — Google increased its spending on lobbying 11 percent over the previous year to $1.2 million in the third quarter demonstrating the Internet giant’s willingness to spend to shape federal policy, Consumer Watchdog said today. In the comparable quarter a year ago Google spent $1.08 million. A key to Google’s lobbying effort is its well-connected Washington staff, the nonpartisan, nonprofit public interest group said.
News Clipping
The advocacy group Consumer Watchdog is broadcasting Jumbotron video ads all this week in the heart of New York’s Times Square to mock Google as a big chicken for dodging a privacy debate.
Press Release
SANTA MONICA, CA – Consumer Watchdog has placed a digital advertisement in Times Square calling Internet giant Google “chicken” for its failure to accept the public interest group’s challenge to debate measures to protect consumers’ online privacy. The ad is running during “AdWeek” in New York City, at which Google has a major presence.
News Clipping
“That’s kind of a fundamental human right,” argued John Simpson, an advocate with Consumer Watchdog. “The books that people have been taking out of the library are not something that’s shared, and librarians have fought to maintain that. Generally, you can’t go in and say, ‘What’s my wife been reading on her library card? What’s my son been reading on our library card?’ It’s private. In the same way, the Internet is a great source of information, and people ought to be able to consider that their activity online is private in the same way. The fact of the matter is that it’s not right now.”
Press Release
SANTA MONICA, CA — The consumer group that recently launched a popular online animated satire of Google’s privacy problems embodied in an ice cream truck said the revelation that a Google engineer tracked children down shows that private information is never safe if it is in Google’s hands. Consumer Watchdog called on Google to publicly answer some basic questions about how effectively it protects consumers’ privacy.
