Blog Post
You’ve probably heard the description of ways to mislead people that was attributed to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disreali and popularized in this country by Mark Twain: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” Now we can add a fourth: Googlespeak.
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
Struggling to find the definition for a word? Simply type “define: XXXX”, where XXXX is the word you’re asking about, into Google’s search box. Over at the New Yorker in an article called “Don’t Be Evil,” Simon Rich notes Google’s ability to serve up definitions. Then he has a little fun.
Blog Post
Support for Do Not Track Me legislation is growing in Washington with the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission telling ABC’s Good Morning America on Friday that “one of the things we are thinking about is a Do Not Track List.”
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.
Blog Post
Amidst a surge in governmental requests for private user data, Google’s openness effort is lagging, as the release of Google’s second transparency report shows. The report, released Tuesday, is a welcome sign of the search engine’s commitment to openness, but it is not a big improvement over the initial report last April.
Blog Post
I was at Google’s DC headquarters yesterday afternoon for the first event of AdWeek 2010 – the advertising industry’s annual conference in DC. I don’t know if one company always dominates the event, but this year seems to be an all-Google affair. As the only advertiser that’s a “platinum sponsor,” Google hosted, sat on, or was the topic of five panels — more indication that Google is king in the online ad world.
Blog Post
Google Instant is not for me. When I search, I don’t want Google to know where I am or what I like or to tell me things it thinks I am interested in. I don’t want a for-profit corporation to be what Sergey Brin wants Google to be – “the third half of your brain.”
