Press Release
Public Policy Should Be Decided In Hearing Room With Sunlight And Transparency, Group Says
SANTA MONICA, CA — Warning that a Democratic Senate Campaign Committee
Fundraiser scheduled to be held at Google’s headquarters in Mountain
View, CA, on Friday created an appearance of a conflict of interest,
Consumer Watchdog called on the seven Senators scheduled to appear not
to attend.
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Google Inc. will announce a feature tomorrow that will give users more
control over their online privacy, according to a consumer advocate who
discussed the matter with the company. John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog hasn’t reviewed Google Dashboard yet,
because he refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement. But attorneys for
the Mountain View search giant informed him the new feature would be
unveiled on Thursday, he told The Chronicle.
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A group of 10 consumer advocacy groups, including the U.S. Public
Interest Research Group, Consumers Union and the Consumer Federation of
America, has called on the U.S. Congress to enact legislation to
protect consumer privacy amid the growing use of Internet technology
that tracks consumers’ online behavior. A bill is expected to be
submitted this fall in the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s
Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet.
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As Congress considers new privacy legislation, consumer and privacy
groups have put forward their proposals for limiting online data
collection. A coalition of groups including the Center for Digital
Democracy, Consumer Watchdog and the Electronic Frontier Foundation
submitted its views to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
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A group of ten consumer groups on Tuesday called on Congress to enact
meaningful privacy legislation, and slammed industry efforts as totally
inadequate. The groups are most concerned about behavioral tracking, a technique
used by Internet companies to serve up more targeted ads or results
based on your Web
browsing activities. Are you searching for information on Paris? You
might see ads on the right-hand bar for travel deals or hotels, or
links to blog posts about the French city.
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Search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft employ behavioral
targeting, in which cookies collect information on users’ Web browsing
habits, to better tailor online ad campaigns for Web surfing consumers.
This practice doesn’t sit well with consumer and privacy advocates,
which urged Congress to crack down on behavioral targeting and asked
the Federal Trade Commission to set up a registry to help users opt out
of such practices.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Privacy advocates are gearing up to push for broad electronic privacy legislation this fall, hoping to convince lawmakers that businesses’ self-regulation techniques are inadequate. The groups also say Internet companies’ efforts don’t go far enough.
"Self regulation does not work. We’ve seen it in capital markets. We’ve
seen it online," said Consumer Watchdog’s John Simpson.
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A pair of watchdogs on Wednesday urged the White House not halt the
pending appointment of Google’s top global public policy executive to
the position of deputy chief technology officer under CTO Aneesh
Chopra, saying it would violate the intent of President Obama’s ethics
rules. Although the choice of Google’s Andrew McLaughlin for the
position has been widely reported, it has yet to be announced.
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(Semi-)Apology For Money-Snuffing Missive
San Francisco, CA — Google has attempted to cut the funding of a
well-known public watchdog, after the organization launched a
"guerrilla" attack on its Washington lobby operation.
