Privacy International, a company founded in 1990 and based in London, recently released a report that ranked Google last place among Internet companies in terms of privacy. None of the companies scored highly, but Google was given the glaring distinction of the least privacy-friendly Web company, "achieving the status of being an endemic threat to privacy," according to the study.
The results of the study are based on initial results stemming from a six-month long study of Internet privacy practices. Twenty-three companies were analyzed on a number of factors. Companies that were "privacy friendly and privacy enhancing" were branded green, while companies that threatened "comprehensive consumer surveillance & entrenched hostility to privacy" were branded black. While no companies were given the honor of the green stamp, Google was the only to be branded black.
"Throughout our research, we have found numerous deficiencies and hostilities in Google's approach to privacy that go well beyond those of other organizations," the report indicated.
The report, titled "A Race to the Bottom – Privacy Ranking of Internet Service Companies," also added that "While a number of companies share some of these negative elements, none comes close to achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy. This is in part due to the diversity and specificity of Google's product range and the ability of the company to share extracted data between these tools, and in part it is due to Google's market dominance and the sheer size of its user base. Google's status in the ranking is also due to its aggressive use of invasive or potentially invasive technologies and techniques."
Privacy International continued its verbal scolding of Google by saying that it has "witnessed an attitude to privacy within Google that at its most blatant is hostile, and at its most benign is ambivalent."
The founder and CEO of the Center for Digital Democracy, Jeff Chester, said that he thought that the results of the study were reached fairly and that "Google's leadership has failed to address the serious privacy concerns expressed by privacy advocates over its data collection policies." He added that the DoubleClick acquisition was the "tipping point" for him concerning Google and privacy.
As expected, Google disagreed with the finding of the study. Nicole Wong, Google’s associate general counsel, said that the study was based on a number of "inaccuracies and misunderstandings about our services."
Matt Cutts, who works with Google’s quality group, strongly refuted the report in his blog, concluding that Privacy International’s report could adversely affect efforts to enhance Web privacy, because "the bottom-line takeaway message that I got from the report is that a company can work hard on privacy issues and still get dragged into the mud."
Last weekend the director of Privacy International, Simon Davies, sent an open letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, voicing displeasure over Google representatives hinting that the privacy advocate had a Microsoft-backed vendetta because a member of its Advisory Board is an employee at Microsoft.
Davies says that, in the past, Privacy International has reprimanded Microsoft for its privacy shortcomings and suggests that Google’s response stems from "sour grapes that you achieved the lowest ranking amongst the Internet giants."
In the report, Privacy International explains why Microsoft did not get a black branding by saying, "The true difference between Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. can be defined not so much by the data practices and privacy policies that exist between the two organizations, but by the corporate ethos and leadership exhibited by each."
It also highlights the fact that Microsoft used to be a "fundamental danger to privacy" five years ago, but that in "more recent times the organization appears to have adopted a less antagonistic attitude to privacy, and has at least structurally adjusted to the challenge of creating a privacy-friendly environment."
Privacy International is encouraging all major Internet companies to convene in San Francisco sometime in July to discuss more consistent and improved privacy measures for consumers.
Privacy concerns have always been a cloud that has lingered around Google’s reputation, but so long as users perceive personal customization to be of high value at a relatively insignificant cost of privacy there will be no big complaints. The only thing that could possibly shift this sentiment is not a report, but a highly publicized security slip-up in the same vein as AOL’s mishap last August.
Sources:
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=02300243G1J0
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/10/google-rated-bottom-for-privacy/
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/pgw95gD4UxRwlZ/Privacy-
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