Fraud

Google’s recent “Report: How Google Fights Piracy,” begs cross-examination, for the same reason courts and Congress employ the tool of cross examination and the process of adversarial hearings to get to the real truth. 

We all are familiar with the legal oath: “Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?”

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. 

Google Inc. has a rap sheet longer than any Googler’s arm. See it here. It shows:

• 142 incidents in 13 countries and the EU, involving 6 continents;
• 34 official actions against Google: 1 criminal, 7 fraud, 4 theft, 11 antitrust, and 11 privacy;
• 6 near-record fines in 3 countries;
• 11 nations and the EU have Google under antitrust investigation;
• 11 official privacy sanctions in multiple countries;
• 12 different industries have sued Google for theft; and
• 20+ cyber-security lapses have surfaced in the last 2 years.

This evidence shows Google to be the worst corporate scofflaw in modern American history.

It is timely and relevant given that America’s Attorneys General are meeting in Boston June 18^th to discuss Google’s alleged aiding and abetting of criminal activity broadly. Google CEO Larry Page and General Counsel Kent Walker have been invited to the closed meeting to discuss the matter.

Bubbles happen because people ignore economics and assume away reality in their excitement over a new idea. “Virtual currencies” could be the latest tech “economics of abundance” bubble in the making. Fans of abundance economics imagine that the free and open Internet’s near zero marginal cost of borderless transactions will ultimately slay traditional economics of scarcity.

Cyber-utopians imagine that currency, or money, is a simple function, like any other product or service that they have made openly available to everyone in the world at virtually no cost on the Internet. They imagine the only thing that matters with the business of money is how money is transmitted.

They assume creating money is just a coding and crowd-sourcing task. How hard could that be? What possibly could go wrong? It’s only money.

Sometimes something is so off-base that a straight analysis is wholly insufficient and warrants satire.

Google's 60-page proposed remedy document -- or "Commitments to address the EU's antitrust concerns of search bias -- warrants satire and ridicule. 

Google’s proposed search bias remedy is no remedy. It would be worse than the status quo.

If accepted by the EU, it would legitimize and entrench Google’s 90+% dominance of search and search advertising in Europe, and make it much harder for any semblance of competition to ever take root.  

Google’s proposed search bias remedies are so preposterous one has to use metaphors, imagery and analogies to understand what is really going on and what Google is really proposing.

More evidence continues to surface that Big Internet companies expect and seek exceptional special treatment from Government that other companies simply do not expect or seek.

(The updated Google Privacy Rap Sheet is here.)

In response to Google getting sanctioned $7m for privacy violations by 38 State Attorneys General for its unauthorized collection” of private WiFi data nationwide between 2008 and 2010, Google’s public relations mantra is: “we work hard to get privacy right at Google, but in this case we didn’t, which is why we quickly tightened up our systems to address the issue.”

To understand why Google owns the single worst privacy record over the last decade of any Global 2000 corporation, listen to what Google’s leadership says about privacy-related matters in their own words. Then compare what Google Says about privacy below, with Google’s Privacy Rap Sheet – current up to June 4, 2012.  

Please don't miss my new Daily Caller Op-ed "The Looming Government Spectrum Scandal" -- here.

• It's Part 5 of my ongoing Government Spectrum Waste, Fraud & Abuse Research Series.

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Government Spectrum Waste Fraud and Abuse Research Series

Part 1: U.S. Government's Obsolete and Wasteful Spectrum Hoarding and Rationing

Please see my Daily Caller Op-ed "America's Real Wireless Problem Is Not Too Little WiFi" -- here.

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Government Spectrum Waste Fraud and Abuse Research Series

Part 1: "U.S. Government's Obsolete and Wasteful Spectrum Hoarding and Rationing"