Google Accused of Privacy Violations
676672
Privacy International wants Google to acknowledge and apologize for 'hostility' to customer privacy.
200396
Google has the most abysmal privacy policies and is leading a &quot;race to the bottom&quot; by the world&#39;s most renowned Internet firms, according to a British human rights advocacy group.
309093
Google, a frequent target of privacy advocates, yesterday called for new international standards on the collection and use of consumer data.
85114
Google is sharply criticised in a report looking at the privacy policies of popular net firms.
592960
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;
625345
Google has been sharply criticised in a report looking at the privacy policies of popular net firms.
288519
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.
363471
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.
79344
Google posts new videos on YouTube explaining its privacy settings in products as part of a privacy offensive.
103538
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.
189472
The Street View feature of Google Maps, with its close-up views of city streets and recognizable shots of people, could violate a Canadian law protecting individual privacy, officials said on Wednesday.
125094
A new online feature of Google Maps called Street View is stirring up a debate over privacy concerns on the Web.
312912
Advocacy group Privacy International says California-based Google ranks last among 12 major Internet-based companies when users' privacy is concerned.
444987
People who use public or workplace computers for e-mail, instant messaging and Web searching have a new privacy risk to worry about: Google&#39;s free tool that indexes a PC&#39;s contents for quickly locating data.
9680
What's behind the latest privacy cockup? Google can count itself fortunate that a serious privacy storm it caused took place in the run up to Christmas - when world+dog was otherwise occupied. By altering the behaviour of one of its web-services, Google ran foul of its own Privacy guarantee - and continues to violate it.â¦
356986
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- An independent European Union panel has launched an investigation into whether Google Inc.'s Internet search engine abides by European privacy rules.
101851
Privacy International report calls search giant hostile to users' privacy.