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Google Proposes Separate Rules for Wireless Web
Verizon Communications Inc. and Google Inc. urged U.S. regulators to leave wireless Internet services outside most policies that are designed to prevent carriers from making some websites perform better than others. Consumer Watchdog, a consumer group based in Santa Monica, said the proposal “completely undermines the future of the Internet” because the wireless use of the Web is gaining in popularity.
Continue reading...Google-Verizon call for Congressional ban on Net Neutrality for mobile devices
10. August 2010
John Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog, concurs. He says the Google-Verizon proposal “pays lip service” to Net Neutrality and contains two fundamental flaws.
Continue reading...Anger Greets Google-Verizon Plan for Routing Web Traffic
10. August 2010
“Ultimately, consumers would pay the costs for the premium delivery, or worse, would never see the content of smaller companies,” says John Simpson, director of advocacy group Consumer Watchdog. “Google claims it won’t use premium channels for delivery, but not long ago they professed to defend true net neutrality.”
Continue reading...Google, Verizon Offer Internet Proposal
9. August 2010
Santa Monica-based Consumer Watchdog, however, said that while the new broadband proposal “pays lip service to the idea of net neutrality,” it would actually “completely undermine the open and free Internet we enjoy.” John M. Simpson, consumer advocate with the nonpartisan, nonprofit public interest group, said there are two main problems with the proposal.
Continue reading...Has Google Jumped the Shark?
6. August 2010
Google has admitted to “accidentally” retrieving and storing masses of personal information, including snippets of emails, while trawling for public WiFi spots. The accidents occurred over a period of four years in 30 countries. Interpreting this bombshell charitably, we might say it was a major and avoidable blunder that cost the company a lot of good will and trust. But groups like Consumer Watchdog suggest that Google was just seeing what it could get away with, and that we wouldn’t know about it at all if they hadn’t got busted: “Its computer engineers run amok, push the envelope and gather whatever data they can until their fingers are caught in the cookie jar.”
Continue reading...Google Make Deal With Verizon That Could Undermine Net Neutrality
6. August 2010
Digital rights advocacy groups took a cautious view of the deal. John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog said: “Apparently Google redefines principles to suit the business need of the moment… What Google and Verizon are trying to do is carve up the Internet behind closed doors for their own benefit.” The deal comes after the Federal Communications Commission disbanded talks on net neutrality, saying that it had failed to create an agreement on a ‘robust framework to preserve the openness and freedom of the internet’.
Continue reading...Watchers Fear Google Compromise on ‘Net Neutrality’
5. August 2010
Nonprofit group Consumer Watchdog portrayed any compromise by Google on net neutrality as a betrayal. “Apparently Google redefines principles to suit the business need of the moment,” said John Simpson, a consumer advocate with the group. “What Google and Verizon are trying to do is carve up the Internet behind closed doors for their own benefit.”
Continue reading...Google Teams Up with CIA to Fund “Recorded Future” Startup Monitoring Websites, Blogs & Twitter Accounts
30. July 2010
Investors at the CIA and Google are backing a company called “Recorded Future” that monitors tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts in real time in order to find patterns, events and relationships that may predict the future. The news comes amidst Google’s so-called “Wi-Spy” scandal, that refers to revelations that Google’s Street View cars operating in some thirty countries snooped on private Wi-Fi networks over the last three years.
Continue reading...Google WiFi Data Collection Questions Whether America Protects Privacy At All
29. July 2010
According to a new poll from Consumer Watchdog a major part of Americans are very concerned about the privacy issues arousing from Google’s Street View data collection. Much covered reports about Google’s gathering private information from users’ WiFi networks make US consumers doubt in the efficiency of privacy protection measures implemented today, they want better privacy protections put in place.
Continue reading...Google Users Concerned About WiSpy But Still Prefer Google
28. July 2010
Web consumers are concerned about Google’s collection of data over wireless networks, but still give the search engine and Web services provider a favorable rating of 74 percent. That’s the latest from a poll conducted by Google watchers Consumer Watchdog and Grove Insight, which also found citizens are concerned about their privacy.
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10. August 2010