The Evidence Google Violated DOJ's Criminal Non-Prosecution Agreement -- Part 27 Google Unaccountability series

Please click -- here for the powerpoint presentation: "The public evidence Google violated the DOJ-Google criminal non-prosecution agreement."

Summary

In August of 2011, Google admitted criminal liability for knowingly advertising for rogue pharmacies dispensing drugs without a prescription for seven years despite repeated Government warnings to stop doing so.

To settle this criminal matter in advance of a Grand Jury proceeding, Google agreed in the DOJ-Google Criminal Non-Prosecution Agreement (NPA ) to disgorge $500m in ill-gotten revenues and to obey a two-year remediation requirement designed to deter more Google criminal activity. 

The purpose of this presentation is to hold Google accountable to the rule of law and its public representations.

The public evidence to date strongly indicates that Google broadly and repeatedly violated the main going-forward remediation requirement in the NPA: to have a “comprehensive compliance and ethics program, and policies, procedures and technological tools designed to detect and prevent violations of these laws and to ensure compliance with internal Company policies and procedures.”

Sadly, the public evidence shows that the NPA did not deter more Google criminal activity because: 

• State Attorneys General are publicly charging Google continues to aid and abet criminal activity in violation of the NPA;
• State Attorneys General investigators have easily found evidence of continued Google criminal advertising on YouTube;
• Google has been found by the Federal Government to have violated five additional laws during the NPA probation period;
• Google has spurned several obvious, common sense, measures that would help prevent more criminal activity on Google;
• Google has ignored NPA prevention requirement for YouTube ads, apparently engaging in willful blindness to the NPA/law; &
• Google apparently deliberately provided “false, incomplete, and misleading” representations to DOJ prosecutors.

Importantly, the mission of the Department of Justice is: "To enforce the law…; to ensure public safety; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.”

Questions for the DOJ: Have DOJ investigators independently verified:

• Google implemented a comprehensive compliance program “to detect and prevent violations” of law per the NPA?
• Google trained its employees on how to comply with the NPA remediation requirements?
• That Google has stopped criminal advertising during the last two years per the NPA?
• Has Google not spurned common sense measures that would help prevent more criminal activity on Google?
• Has Google applied the NPA remediation program to YouTube advertising?
• Has Google’s NPA remediation implementation met the criminal standards of the DOJ’s United States Attorney Manual?

In sum, does the DOJ expect Google -- the company operating America’s top online market, serving over 200 million Americans, and most U.S. online advertisers and publishers -- to abide by the NPA and obey the law?

You can see the 25-page power point with links to the evidence -- here.  

***

Google Unaccountability Research Series:

Part 0: Google's Poor and Defiant Settlement Record

Part 1: Why Google Thinks It Is Above the Law

Part 2: Top Ten Untrue Google Stories

Part 3: Google's Growing Record of Obstruction of Justice

Part 4: Why FTC's $22.5m Privacy Fine is Faux Accountability

Part 5: Google's Culture of Unaccountability: In Their Own Words

Part 6: Google Mocks the FTC's Ineffectual Privacy & Antitrust Enforcement

Part 7: An FTC Googleopoly Get Out of Jail Free Card?

Part 8: Top Lessons to Learn for Google Antitrust Enforcers

Part 9: Google Mocks EU and FTC in Courting Yahoo Again

Part 10: FTC-Google Antitrust: The Obvious Case of Consumer Harm

Part 11: Why FTC Can't Responsibly End the Google Search Bias Antitrust Investigation

Part 12: Oversight Questions for FTC's Handling of Google Antitrust Probe

Part 13: Courts Not FTC Should Decide on Google Practices (The Hill Op-ed)

Part 14:  Troubling Irregularities Mount in FTC Commissioners' Handling of Google Antitrust Investigation

Part 15: Top Ten Unanswered Questions on FTC-Google Outcome

Part 16: Top Takeaways from FTC’s Google Antitrust Decision

Part 17: Google’s Global Antitrust Rap Sheet

Part 18: Google’s Privacy Words vs. its Anti-privacy Deeds

Part 19: Google’s Privacy Rap Sheet Updated – Fact-checking Google’s Claim it Works Hard to Get Privacy Right

Part 20: DOJ & FTC Report Cards

Part 21: The Evidence Google Bamboozled EU Competition Authorities

Part 22: EU-Google: Too Powerful to Prosecute? The Problems with Politically Enabling Google

Part 23: Google’s proposed EU Search Bias Remedies: a Satire 

Part 24: Google’s Antitrust Rap Sheet Updated

Part 25: Is this the record of a trustworthy company? Check out Google’s consolidated rap sheet

Part 26: Top questions as DOJ-Google criminal prosecution deadline of August 19^th approaches