Consumer Watchdog’s InsideGoogle.com has taken its online privacy campaign to New York’s Times Square, where it has purchased a 540 sq. ft. Jumbotron digital advertisement promoting an animated video satirizing Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s attitude toward consumer privacy.
“We’re satirizing Schmidt in the most highly trafficked public square in the nation to make the public aware of how out of touch Schmidt and Google are when it comes to our privacy rights,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, in the press release. “America needs a ‘Do Not Track Me’ list and Google is Exhibit A in the case for it.”
Titled “Don’t Be Evil?” the CG animation features Schmidt driving an ice cream truck and secretly spying on children. The animated short was produced by the nonprofit consumer group to shine a spotlight on the need for Congress to enact a national “Do Not Track Me” list.
MacDailyNews Take: Jumbotron that thing for as long as it takes! First quarter Super Bowl ad, too, please!
Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil,” but recent actions reveal that the Internet giant has lost its way, Consumer Watchdog said. Google has collected massive amounts of personal data from Wi-Fi networks through its Street View cars, made private Gmail contacts publicly available on Buzz, and done a complete about-face on net neutrality, joining with Verizon in calling for toll lanes on the Internet.
Schmidt has appeared clueless regarding privacy himself, Consumer Watchdog said. When questioned about privacy, he has said, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” Recently, he suggested children could change their names when they got older if they wanted to escape what was embarrassing and public in their online lives.
“We think there should be another way to protect the public’s online privacy: a ‘Do Not Track Me’ list that prevents Google or any other Internet company from tracking your every move online,” said John M. Simpson, director of the group’s Inside Google Project, in the press release.
A “Do Not Track Me” list would prevent online companies from gathering personal information, just as Congress had the Federal Trade Commission create a Do Not Call list to prevent intrusive telemarketers from invading consumers’ privacy.
Privacy protection is overwhelming popular. 80% of Americans support a “Do Not Track Me” list according to a July InsideGoogle.com national poll conducted by Grove Insight. 90% said that it is important to “have more laws that protect privacy of your personal information” online.
The poll found strong support to protect Internet privacy including these steps:
• Require the creation of an “anonymous button” that allows individuals to stop anyone from tracking their online searches or purchases: 86% favor; 9% oppose.
• Ban the collection of any personal data on children under the age of 18: 84% favor; 10% oppose.
• Prevent online companies from tracking personal information or web searches without your explicit, written approval: 84% favor; 11% oppose.
• Ban online companies from tracking and storing information related to children’s online behavior so they can target them with advertising: 83% favor; 12% oppose.
• Require the creation of a “do not track me” list for online companies that would be administered by the Federal Trade Commission: 80% favor; 12% oppose.
Read the poll’s topline results (.pdf) here.
Read Grove Ltd.’s poll analysis (.pdf) here.
Consumer Watchdog, formerly the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights is a nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization with offices in Washington, DC and Santa Monica, Ca. Consumer Watchdog’s website is www.consumerwatchdog.org. Visit our new Google Privacy and Accountability Project website: http://insidegoogle.com/.
Source: Consumer Watchdog
MacDailyNews Take: Couldn’t happen to a creepier mole.
I think it’s time for Apple to develop their own search engine and get rid of Google once and for all. BTW took a look at that ixquick.com and it’s a nice little search engine.
Nothing is free but its nice to get free services like what google offer ppl dont always have money really what is the greatest harm google can do with a lot of our personal info. Give me an example that is not illegal.
This (and similar campaigns) will benefit Microsoft by contributing to some people’s decision to start using Bing, where Microsoft will harvest those people’s personally identifiable information. In fact, has anyone checked to see if Microsoft, the Gates Foundation, or that sleaze Paul Allen have made any large contributions to Consumer Watchdog, or perhaps did the professional job of making this video? Microsoft is a fighter, and has done such stealth attacks before.
Carl, Let us know next time you see a little Apple car driving around sniffing your network.
I use Google, Gmail, Google Calendar… big friggin’ deal. So they know I like surfing to right-wing mac “news” sites.
Non issue.
A large portion of the internet reacts:
“Why does Consumer Watchdog hate Android? Must be total Apple fanbois.”
O, Good grief, I think Apple would use something much more advance than driving a little car sniffing the neighborhood networks. Probably an iHover or something.
as awesome as this may be – the reality is that Google is tied into so much money, and so much political capital, that it will never get regulated unless it happens from within.
OK, that was freaky. Right after I watched the clip and read the comments, my Internet connection went down. They’re tracking me!
At least with Google or Microsoft, if you don’t like them you can stop using their service. They are not forcing you to deal with them.
On the other hand, you cannot avoid dealing with another, much more powerful group of people, who have been tracking and monitoring all of us for decades. These are the people who call themselves the g.o.v.e.r.n.m.e.n.t, and they not only track which web sites you look at, they also monitor every one of your phone calls too. Plus they have access to all your financial details, and soon they’ll have all your medical information too.
That’s what we get for letting all the power concentrate into the hands of a single group. What’s to keep them from abusing that power? Oh right, we’re told we can control them by stuffing a piece of paper in a box every few years. And that they can’t just do anything they want because they have to obey the laws, even though it is they who make these laws! Do you really believe their own judges or their own police is going to keep them from walking all over you?
The idea of giving all the power to a single group of people so they can protect us from one another is just crazy. Who is going to defend us against them?? Yet we are all brought up–in government school–to ignore this obvious madness.
Companies are held accountable by customers voting with their dollars. Don’t like what company A does? Take your business elsewhere, buy from company B instead. Company A will get the message pretty effectively when it loses customer after customer to competing companies. Only those companies that provide enough value to enough customers get to stay in business, the others eventually lose so much money that they have to shut down.
The only way an evil company can survive and prosper is by allying itself with some government officials, who in exchange for payment will pass laws and regulations that give an unfair advantage to the evil company, or harm its competitors. Of course the laws and regulations are labelled as “for the public good”, when in fact they are the exact opposite.
So the problem of evil companies will solve itself, along with most of the other problems today like depression and pollution and war, only when power is no longer concentrated in a few hands. Each prosperous period in history was one when no one central power existed, such as was the case for people living in Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands and many other parts of europe around A.D 1000 to 1500. Murray Rothbard’s For a New Liberty is a good place to start if you want to learn more about all this.
as with everything – nothing comes free – google, facebook, etc… so ask yourself what I am giving to this company if they are giving me this product or service away for free…?
I’v been using DuckDuckGo and it works really good for me.
https://duckduckgo.com/
http://www.bing.com/search?q=how+many+windows+viruses+are+there?&go;=&form=QBRE&qs=n&sk;=
Give Thanks for working this precious information available to the public.
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