Press Release
Americans Favor Broad Range Of Online Privacy Protections for Consumers
SANTA MONICA, CA — A significant majority of Americans are troubled by recent revelations that Google’s Street View cars gathered communications from home WiFi networks, and they want stronger legal protection to preserve their online privacy, according to a national opinion poll released today by Consumer Watchdog.
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“Is there some relationship between Google and the NSA (National Security Agency)?” asked Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. “Was this data shared with intelligence agencies in America? It’s a question. We just want a straight answer.”
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Consumer Watchdog, a group that has been critical of Google on multiple fronts, praised the state effort but again urged Congress to hold a hearing on the issue. “Just as the CEO of BP was asked to explain the Gulf oil spill to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, so should Google CEO Eric Schmidt be required to testify about the gross intrusion into consumers’ privacy,” John Simpson, the group’s consumer advocate, said in a statement.
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This past quarter, Google spent $1.34 million on Washington lobbyists, an increase of 41% over last year’s spending during the same period. That brings the company’s lobbying money up to $2.72 million for the first half of 2010, according to Consumer Watchdog. With all that spending, who and what is Google trying to influence?
Press Release
Santa Monica, CA — Consumer Watchdog today praised a group of 37 state attorneys general for seeking to get to the bottom of the Google Wi-Spy scandal and reiterated its call for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to hold hearings on the issue.
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Consumer Watchdog has said that the Energy and Commerce Committee really must conduct hearings into Google privacy violations, with information coming to light about Google’s classified contracts with the US government.
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The House Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on Information Policy has reversed itself and invited John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog to testify at Thursday’s hearing on federal agencies’ use of Web 2.0 technologies. The invitation to Simpson is dated Tuesday, one day after a subcommittee staff member informed Republican lawmakers that the hearing would feature only one panel of all government witnesses. Simpson is the lead advocate on Consumer Watchdog’s Google Privacy and Accountability Project and has been a harsh critic of the search giant in the past. He was also the only witness requested by Republican lawmakers.
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The Washington Post’s Top Secret America investigation about the vast scale and scope of U.S. government top-secret work, published this week, has revealed some troubling alliances with giant corporations to potentially spy on individual citizens. The Post identified 1,931 companies engaged in top-secret work for the government, including search giant Google. Citing revelations from the Post’s report, the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, is petitioning Congress to look examine whether Google’s Wi-Fi spying may be tied to Google’s government contracts.
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Internet service providers cite e-mails between onetime Google executive Andrew McLaughlin, who now works for the White House, and his former colleagues as the FCC prepares to rewrite the rules governing broadband. John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog said the e-mails suggested that Google, an Internet behemoth with $23.7 billion in annual revenue, had too cozy of a relationship with the White House.
