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Consumer Watchdog continues to push its case that Google Inc. is behaving as an illegal monopoly, releasing a report this morning that alleges the company is abusing is dominance in online search to direct users to its own services.
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Consumer Watchdog said it obtained three years of Internet traffic from the Web metrics firm Experian Hitwise to analyze Web traffic to Google’s other services. It claims that it shows Google’s search results favor its services over competitors, a claim Google has repeatedly denied.
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Canada’s move follows confirmation that a U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigation of Google is also underway. The advocacy group Consumer Watchdog requested the FTC probe on May 17. The agency responded that it was “reviewing” that request.
Press Release
Google has been using its dominant position in online search to muscle its way into other Internet businesses, ultimately limiting consumer choice, Consumer Watchdog said today in a report written for its new Inside Google Website.
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Consumer Watchdog, a group that has become one of Google’s most outspoken critics, renewed its call for a regulatory crackdown Friday. “Once again, Google has demonstrated a lack of concern for privacy,” said Consumer Watchdog’s John Simpson. “Its computer engineers run amok, push the envelope and gather whatever data they can until their fingers are caught in the cookie jar.”
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Meanwhile, consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog on Wednesday urged state attorneys general to investigate whether the company broke wiretap, privacy and unfair business practices laws. The group also called on state authorities to demand that Google preserve all documents relating to its data-collection activities because they could be evidence in criminal or civil cases.
Press Release
Consumer Watchdog today called on the state attorneys general to investigate Google’s WiSpy snooping in their respective states to determine what state laws were broken.
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John Simpson, a researcher for the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog who was the first to raise questions about McLaughlin’s appointment to the White House, said Google’s bumbling intellectual persona in Washington is just an act.
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The announcement drew an immediate response from a nonprofit consumer-advocacy organization, Consumer Watchdog. The group said Google’s motives in releasing the report were driven by “its attempts to quell worldwide outrage over the WiSpy scandal” and that this is “classic corporate PR spin to divert justified criticism.”
Press Release
“This is what every big corporation does when they are under fire,” said John M. Simpson, consumer advocate with the nonpartisan, nonprofit group. “They divert attention from their wrongdoing and spin a story about their contributions.”
