Rising consumer complaints against Google -- More evidence Google does not do what they say

Listening to Google's General Counsel testify at the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on the Google-DoubleClick merger  which I also testified at, one would think everyone loves Google and all was just "teddie bears and rainbows" for consumers in Googleland.

• As with all things Google -- what Google says and what Google does -- are two very different things.
• The San Francisco Chronicle recently ran a great article outlining how not all consumers are as enamored with Google as Google's PR machine leads people to believe.
  • Read the Chronicle article: "User complaints to FTC show another side of Google."  

This is part of a clear pattern with Google... they represent all is well when it in fact is not.

• For example, Google routinely claims to greatly respect consumers' privacy -- however, Google:
  • Runs what I would call a "permissionless click surveilance program" of consumers' most private online behavior that would make J. Edgar Hoover proud and that privacy groups charge is a "deceptive trade practice" before the FTC;
  • is ranked the worst in the world in privacy by Privacy International;
  • runs a "Streetview"program that makes "stalking" easier and more efficient for predators and peeping toms everywhere; and
  • considers people's private search terms to be a form of "peeping" "performance art" worthy of public display in the lobby of their headquarters.   
• Google also claims to respect intellectual property rights but is being sued by more different industries for theft than most any other American company.
• Google further claims to oppose online fraud and click fraud, but actually does little about it because their business model makes the same amount of money whether a click is legitimate or fraudulent.
  • Google systematically misrepresents its services as free. 
  • Google's business model is how we say: "ethically neutral"?

Why am I so tough on Google? Because Google earns it almost every day in adding to the increasing mountain of evidence that Google does not in fact do what Google says it does.

• When I "googled" "Google is a forthright company" I got zero hits/results in all the world's information.  
• When I "googled" "Google is a trustworthy corporation" I got no hits/results in all the worlds information.
• When I "googled" "Google puts consumers' interests first" I got no hits/results in all the world's information.

According to Google's database of all the world's information -- these phrases have never been written by anyone in the world. Pretty damning huh?