I know, it sounds bizarre. But after many attempts by Consumer Watchdog to have their Adwords ads approved for the promotion of their “Don’t Be Evil?” anti-Google pro-privacy animation, they have finally been successful. It took a published letter from Consumer Watchdog to Eric Schmidt to finally twist Google’s arm far enough. The letter included a good round up of Consumer Watchdog’s position:
“Privacy is all about personal control — our ability to say ‘no’ to a company or government agency collecting our information, our ability to say ‘no’ to any person or group knowing where we are, what we like, and what we care about, so that it can suggest what we should do next.“Collecting this type of information without allowing users the ability to control it or removethemselves from tracking in total is, for want of a better word, evil — even if you don’t plan touse the information for nefarious purposes.”
As a major critic of Google’s policies, Consumer Watchdog has had some serious funding wedged behind them to support their seemingly relentless anti-Google campaign. The Rose Foundation boosted their Google Privacy Rights Project with a $100,000 grant, which Google then asked them to withdraw claiming that Consumer Watchdog were unfairly targeting them. However, after a counter complaint by Consumer Watchdog, Google were forced to make an apology:
“We have meetings constantly with groups that disagree with us on any number of issues. In fact, we engaged for months with Consumer Watchdog and sent them detailed responses to their concerns about user privacy. But the group's recent actions – and in particular its baseless accusation that we were lobbying Congress for the right to sell patients' medical records — led us to believe that they are more interested in attracting media attention than in engaging in an open and honest dialog. Nonetheless, I made a mistake in sending information about the group's activities to the Rose Foundation for which I apologize. Google supports the right of anyone or any institution to fund whatever group or project they choose.”
The result of all this is that Consumer Watchdog has been able to wage a terribly unsubtle war on Google including the aforementioned video. Watch it now and let me know if you agree with their sentiment or if you think it is being unfair.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouof1OzhL8k&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
I think it really goes a bit too far and strays from the facts about Google’s ad and privacy policies. They don’t seem to comprehend that Google’s ad tracking system and user accounts are physically separate. I mean how often do the ads next to your search results pop up with things from your private life, unrelated to your search term? Why would Google do this when they can show you more personalised ads inside your email accounts?
Google is far from perfect but I feel in this situation Consumer Watchdog may have gone a step too far.
- Search The Human Body With Google Body Browser - December 21, 2010
- Has This Site Been Hacked? - December 20, 2010
- How Do Twitter & Facebook’s 2010 Trends Compare With Google’s? - December 14, 2010
- Google Zeitgeist 2010: What Have You Been Searching For Planet Earth? - December 10, 2010
- Google Chrome Gets Store And Talks Chrome OS - December 8, 2010
- Google Issues Security Email For Website Optimiser - December 7, 2010
- Google Launches AdWords Global Market Finder - December 7, 2010
- New Android Phone Promises A Pure Experience - December 7, 2010
- Google AdWords Wants Your Products! - December 3, 2010
- Know How Mobile Internet Affects Your Website? Google Analytics does… - December 2, 2010
You may also be interested in:
- Google Says Sorry…so it’s OK to Watch Web Analytics TV#13 Find out what Google is doing to clean up its mess and then watch the latest instalment of Analytics TV... ...
- Google Faces New Anti-Competition Inquiry in US Google face an inquiry over allegations of anti-competitive behaviour in US. ...
- Google AdWords offers Enhanced CPC Google AdWords once again makes life a little easier by handling one more campaign detail for you. ...
- Google Dole Out $8.5m Over Buzz Lawsuit Google fold over Buzz lawsuit, so where to next? ...
- New Project Management in Google Wave from Wrike.com The developer API available for Google Wave has provided the platform for Write.com to develop project mangement for the Wave...
Cozy Digital is an