Archive | Tag: justice department

News Clipping

With Justice Department scrutiny over the Google Books Settlement
only the the leading edge of antitrust regulators’ attention to Google,
the company has launched a dog-and-pony show dedicated to combating the
impression that more control is needed. In a presentation (PDF)
acquired by Consumer Watchdog, Google public affairs lead Adam
Kovacevich argued that Google is anything but anti-competitive. Its
success comes from “learning by doing,” the presentation says.

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News Clipping

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Google continued to lay the groundwork Wednesday for
an antitrust defense in the event that the federal government decides
to take a formal look at its core business.
Inside a conference room in Google’s San Francisco office,
executives ran through essentially the same presentation leaked last
month by the consumer activist group Consumer Watchdog,
focusing most of their efforts on trying to paint a picture of Google
as just one part of a large Internet ecosystem, as opposed to a
dominant search giant.

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News Clipping

The U.S. Department of Justice has stepped up its review of a deal that would settle a lawsuit publishers and authors filed against Google over the latter’s book search engine, according to published reports. Consumer Watchdog has charged that the proposed settlement gives Google special protections against lawsuits over orphan works.

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News Clipping

The U.S. Justice Department is reportedly investigating Google’s
digital books settlement with publishers, which Google claims will make
millions of volumes accessible to all but which has critics crying
antitrust issues. Google’s books project has run into opposition from a
number of groups, including Consumer Watchdog, arguing that it gives the search engine company too
much control over content with little oversight.

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News Clipping

Two consumer groups object to Andrew McLaughlin’s potential appointment, saying it would violate President Obama’s ethics guidelines.

Andrew McLaughlin is slated to become the new deputy CTO, under federal
CTO Aneesh Chopra, according to a New York Times report citing two
unnamed sources. Google has acknowledged McLaughlin’s departure, but not his
destination. The White House has not yet announced plans to appoint
McLaughlin. Nonetheless, the Center for Digital Democracy and Consumer Watchdog on
Wednesday asked President Obama in a letter not to complete the rumored
pending appointment because doing so would violate the President’s
ethics guidelines.

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News Clipping

Google attracted more negative attention than perhaps it bargained for
with its goal to digitize the world’s libraries. In April 2009, a
nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, Consumer Watchdog, wrote a
letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking the government to
examine the settlement between Google, The Author’s Guild, and the
Association of American Publishers (AAP). That settlement, Consumer Watchdog argued, deserved to be placed under
government review because it gave Google the same financial terms of
digital-book rights as any future competitor.

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News Clipping

In-your-face watchdog gets advice from Microsoft ‘people,’ interest from Verizon

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Google Inc. has attracted a number of
critics over the years, but the Internet search giant hasn’t yet had to
deal with any as jarringly adversarial as Consumer Watchdog. "Their tactics tend to be more confrontational than others’," said Tim
Little, executive director of the Rose Foundation, an Oakland,
Calif.-based organization that funds Consumer Watchdog. "But sometimes
there’s a place for folks being confrontational."

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Press Release

Washington, DC — Consumer Watchdog has sent to the U.S. Justice
Department a Google document presenting the best corporate arguments
for why Google should not be viewed as monopolistic, along with a
duplicate of the presentation marked up with comments from an expert
countering the claims.  The nonprofit consumer group received both
documents from an anonymous industry insider.

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News Clipping

Is Google a monopoly? That question, which is increasingly gaining the
attention of regulators in Washington, D.C., is also the subject of an
intense public relations war between Google and detractors. Today, a new front was opened up, after a consumer advocacy group
released a copy of a Google presentation on Google’s business
practices, along with critical commentary that casts doubt on Google’s
claims that it supports competition. The group, ConsumerWatchdog.org,
said that the Google presentation is part of a campaign to counter
federal inquiries into potentially anticompetitive practices.

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