Inside Google

Consumer Group Calls for Antitrust Investigation of Google

Grant Gross

The U.S. Department of Justice should launch a broad antitrust investigation into Google’s search and advertising practices and consider a wide array of penalties, including possibly breaking the company up, a consumer group said Wednesday. Consumer Watchdog, along with a mobile entrepreneur and two lawyers representing Google rivals, all called on the DOJ to initiate an antitrust investigation focusing on a number of issues, including Google’s marriage of search results to advertising and its book search service.

Watchdog Wants Google’s Head as Google’s Lobbying Spend Jumps 57%

Clint Boulton

Consumer groups and privacy watchdogs suspicious of Google Creep — its growing size and extension on the Web — are looking at Google’s moves in Washington, D.C., with the flinty enthusiasm of fire and brimstone preachers.

Google Spent $1.38 Million on Federal Lobbying in Q1

Alexei Oreskovic

Google spent $4.03 million lobbying the federal government last year, according to records on the Senate site, compared with Microsoft Corp’s $6.72 million and Oracle Corp’s $5.10 million. First-quarter figures from those companies were expected to be filed by the end of Tuesday. John Simpson, a consumer advocate with the group Consumer Watchdog, said the latest data shows the extent to which Google is increasing its lobbying efforts. Google has “gone from no presence in Washington, to really now what’s one of the biggest lobby shops around,” Simpson said.

Consumer Group to Call for Google Break up

James Temple

Consumer Watchdog, the Santa Monica group that’s proving a perpetual thorn in the side of Google Inc., plans to call on the Justice Department to launch an antitrust action against the search giant and seek remedies including a possible break up.

Should Google Be Broken Up Into Several Companies?

Mike Eglan

A Santa Monica, Calif.-based consumer watchdog group called, er, “Consumer Watchdog” intends to ask the U.S. Justice Department tomorrow during a press conference to investigate and take antitrust action against Google. The action they’re calling for includes breaking up the company into “baby Googs.”

Issa Presses Web Chief On Personal E-Mail Use To Contact Former Co-Workers

Tony Romm

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is pressing White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin to explain his relationship with his former employer, Google. The congressman, who serves as ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said McLaughlin’s account on Google’s new Buzz social network suggests he remains in touch with “more than two dozen individuals […]

Official’s Buzz Profile Sparks FOIA Request For His Emails

Wendy Davis

Google’s Buzz has drawn two privacy lawsuits, a request for a Federal Trade Commission investigation and some pointed criticism by lawmakers. Now, information revealed by Buzz about Andrew McLaughlin, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for the Obama administration and former Google lobbyist, has spurred Consumer Watchdog — which opposed McLaughlin’s appointment — to file a Freedom […]

Buzzed Gmail Outs Google Ties to Obama’s Deputy CTO

Cade Metz

Ex-Googler Hoist By Mountain View’s Own Petard It would be hard to imagine a better Google story. If the company’s own web services somehow outed the most intimate secrets of CEO Eric Schmidt – a man who says net privacy is only for miscreants – that would surely be Google story to end all Google […]

Press Release

Ex-Googler Falls Prey to Wonderful Privacy Flaw of Google Buzz

CONTACT: Clint Boulton

This is a fun story. Andrew McLaughlin, formerly Google’s top lobbyist and currently the deputy CTO in the White House, where he advises President Barack Obama on Internet policy, apparently was aghast to find his contacts exposed by Google Buzz. Buzz is the social Web services that leverage Gmail users’ contacts. By default, Buzz was […]

Consumer Group Seeks Google, White House E-Mails

James Temple

Consumer Watchdog said today it filed a Freedom of Information Act request for copies of e-mails traded between the White House’s Deputy Chief Technology Officer and Google Inc., his former employer. Andrew McLaughlin, previously the Mountain View search company’s chief policy executive, unwittingly revealed his exchanges with former colleagues when the Google Buzz service launched […]