Privacy Groups Criticize Google
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The U.S. government still needs to block or impose conditions on Google Inc.&#39;s acquisition of online advertising server DoubleClick Inc., despite Google&#39;s call for global privacy standards, three privacy groups said Monday.
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By MICHAEL LIEDTKE  SAN FRANCISCO -- Google Inc.'s privacy practices are the worst among the Internet's top destinations, according to a watchdog group seeking to intensify the recent focus on how the online search leader handles personal information about its users.
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SAN FRANCISCO -- An ethics group is urging Congress to scrutinize Google Inc.'s copyright controls after finding hundreds of apparently pirated movies available on the Internet search leader's Web site.
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The apparent release of searches made by hundreds of thousands of users is raising privacy concerns.
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Google Inc. is scaling back how  long it keeps personally identifiable data accumulated from its  Web users, seeking to mollify a European Union watchdog that  has questioned its privacy policies.
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By Michael Liedtke Associated Press  SAN FRANCISCO -- Google Inc.'s privacy practices are the worst among the Internet's top destinations, according to a watchdog group seeking to intensify the recent focus on how the online search leader handles personal information about its users.
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Privacy International wants Google to acknowledge and apologize for 'hostility' to customer privacy.
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In A Race to the Bottom: Privacy Ranking of Internet Service Companies, Privacy International spray-paints the fa&ccedil;ades of landmark companies that line today's Main Street on the Web. The painted colors are assessments of each company's performance on privacy issues. Though the rankings are colorful, what they say isn't pretty.  Nobody in the &quot;interim rankings&quot; (.pdf) gets the top (green) mark for &quot;Privacy-friendly and privacy enhancing&quot;. The bottom (black) mark, for &quot;Comprehensive consumer surveillance &amp; entrenched hostility to privacy&quot;, goes to just one company: Google.
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The ACLU has complained that EarthLink and Google's proposed public Wi-Fi network in San Francisco doesn't adequately protect freedom of speech and privacy.
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Online search companies Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and Microsoft are tightening their privacy policies in the face of mounting public, congressional and regulatory agency concern about the vast amounts of personal data they gather and store.
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People who use public or workplace computers for e-mail, instant messaging and Web searching have a new privacy risk to worry about: Google's free new tool that indexes a PC's contents for quickly locating data.
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Google has responded to a U.S. congressman&#39;s series of questions about its privacy practices, with the company defending its use of consumer data.
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Google has responded to a U.S. congressman&#39;s series of questions about its privacy practices, with the company defending its use of consumer data.Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, sent a letter to Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt Dec. 12, after privacy groups raised questions about the implications of Google&#39;s US$3.1 billion acquisition of online ad server DoubleClick.During an earlier meeting with Schmidt, Barton had &quot;voiced concern regarding the potential consumer protection and privacy implications of the merger,&quot; Barton said in his letter. &quot;I believe Google&#39;s participation in our research into and consideration of the consumer protection implications of a merger of any online search engine and any behavioral or targeted advertising firms is vital to crafting sound national policy.&quot;In response to Barton&#39;s questions about the privacy implications of the merger, Google repeated its calls for Congress to pass a national privacy law that would create a &quot;uniform framework for privacy.&quot;&quot;Concerns about online privacy cannot be solved by one company alone,&quot; said the Google letter, by Alan Davidson, the company&#39;s head of U.S. public policy. &quot;Moreover, both technologies and best practices for protecting privacy are changing rapidly. We therefore encourage you and your staff to ask these questions of other providers of online services.&quot;Barton, ranking minority member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, had asked Google to respond to his letter before Dec. 18, about when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission was expected to complete its examination of the antitrust implications of the merger. Google&#39;s response was dated Friday, one day after the FTC announced it would not block the DoubleClick acquisition. Google hosted Barton&#39;s staff at its headquarters Wednesday and Thursday, however.The FTC approval is the last U.S. hurdle for the merger; the European Union is still reviewing it.Barton&#39;s letter asked several questions about Google&#39;s privacy practices, including how long Google retains search queries, e-mail drafted on Google&#39;s Gmail service and Web histories. Barton also asked why Google needed to retain data.The IP (Internet Protocol) addresses associated with search queries will be partially deleted after 18 months, as Google previously has announced, the letter said. In other services, such as Gmail and Google Web History, the privacy preferences are customized by individual users, the letter said.Google retains data about searches as a way to improve its search algorithms and to improve services such as the spell checking feature on Google search, the letter said. The company also uses the data to fight click fraud and other malicious efforts, the letter said.Barton also asked if Google plans to merge its consumer data with DoubleClick&#39;s after the merger. He asked what was the benefit of the merger if Google did not plan to merge data.&quot;We are new to the third-party display ad serving business, so we have not yet decided whether or how we would merge DoubleClick and Google data,&quot; Davidson&#39;s letter said.The merger would create &quot;numerous efficiencies&quot; not related to DoubleClick&#39;s data, Davidson added. &quot;Acquiring DoubleClick&#39;s expertise in display ad serving will assist Google in its efforts to design an integrated interface for advertisers to manage their texts and display advertising campaigns,&quot; the letter said. &quot;In addition, the acquisition will allow Google to provide advertisers with better metrics for the display ads the place in our advertising network.&quot;
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Google Inc.'s privacy practices are the worst among the Internet's top destinations, according to a watchdog group. The group is seeking to intensify the recent focus on how the online search leader handles personal information about its users.
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Elements of Google's privacy policy are "vague", the firm's global privacy counsel tells BBC News.
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Although Google Inc. says privacy issues are behind its plan to shorten the life span of cookies placed on a user's computer, the move is being dismissed largely as hype.
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The company's slogan may be "Don't be Evil", but Internet giant Google has been hit twice in as many weeks with allegations it doesn't respect users' privacy.