Conflict of Interest

My new Forbes' op-ed: Google Disregards the Law, tells the sordid story behind today's story of Google apparently agreeing to settle a criminal investigation with the Department of Justice for ~$500m for promoting and accepting advertising from illegal online pharmacies.

• The op-ed sadly chronicles that this latest law-breaking by Google is part of a well-established pattern of disregard for the rule of law.
• If one cannot trust a public Fortune 100 company to obey the law, one cannot trust them overall as I explain in much great detail in my new book "Search & Destroy Why You Can't Trust Google Inc."
  • See: www.SearchAndDestroyBook.com for the different ways you can buy the book.

My Network World interview with Ms. Smith, the Privacy and Security Fanatic, about: Search & Destroy Why you can't Trust Google, is here. The link to my book site is here.

The Washington Times published my op-ed on why you can't trust Google Inc., which highlights two of the main themes, privacy and property rights, of my new book: "Search & Destroy Why You Can't Trust Google Inc."

• Please see the op-ed here.
• Please see my book site here.

I've long thought there was a big untold story about Google, essentially a book all about Google, but told from a user's perspective, rather than the well-worn path of Google books told largely from Google's own paternal perspective.

• (You can buy the book, Search & Destroy Why You Can't Trust Google Inc. at www.SearchAndDestroyBook.com, Telescope Books, Amazon, Kindle, Kindle Apps, Barnes & Noble, The Nook, and The Nook Apps.)

Given that Google is the most ubiquitous, powerful and disruptive company in the world, it seemed logical to me that users, and people affected by Google, had a lot of important and fundamental questions about Google that no book had ever tried to answer in a straightforward and well-defended manner.

How business models are aligned or not with users' privacy interests, will be spotlighted at the Senate Judiciary hearing Tuesday on "Protecting Mobile Privacy" featuring Google and Apple officials as witnesses.

• Expect the term "privacy conflict of interest" to become more common and important as companies who don't work for users, hurtle into the future increasingly tracking, analyzing and using users' private information and behavior without users' meaningful consent.

While the Senate Subcommittee on Privacy will hear from both Google and Apple witnesses on how their companies handle users' WiFi location data, their testimony will provide stark contrast in the companies' privacy conflicts of interests.

Google vs Apple concerning alignment with users' interests:

First, 97% of Google's ~$30b in annual revenues comes from advertisers, whereas ~99% of Apple's ~$87b in annual revenue comes directly from customers who buy and use Apple's products and services.

In responding to the growing uproar of hypocrisy over comments made during Google's investor call by Google's CFO that "...everybody that uses Chrome gives us a guaranteed locked-in user" for Google," Brandi Sparkles, Google's renowned crisis PR expert, held a press conference today for just Google-friendly media.

• Brandi Sparkles was joined on the Mountain View dais by Google's Official Keeper of the Google Narrative, Mr. Stori Spinner, and Director of Google's "That Was Not Us" Office, Ms. Anne Teetrust-Violet.

Brandi Sparkles read the following statement to friendly reporters and did not take any questions, in keeping with Google CEO Larry Page's new approach to the media.

"All discussion of Chrome and how it gives Google a "locked-in user," and that "the lifetime value of a Chrome user is phenomenal," that some claim occurred on last week's Google earnings call, was not authorized by me, so it simply did not happen.

We are in the process of innovatively "tweaking" our search algorithm so you will not find any evidence to the contrary. Only the extensive remarks by new CEO Larry Page on the call should be considered official, and his comments should be more than enough information and transparency to put this issue permanently to rest.

Google's ignominious Federal rap sheet only grows longer.

• Friday the DOJ effectively charged Google with misrepresentation to the public.
  • Google represented that its cloud service for Government was certified under the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) since last July, when in fact it was not FISMA-certified for the product that Google claimed it was.
• This latest Google misrepresentation revelation came in a DOJ filing to the Federal Court which is hearing Google's case against the Department of Interior of the U.S. Government:
  • "On December 16, 2010, counsel for the Government learned that, notwithstanding Google's representations to the public at large, its counsel, the GAO and this court... Google does not have FISMA certification for Google Apps for Government."

I.   What does this mean?

There are many major going-forward implications resulting from the DOJ's latest antitrust enforcement action against Google -- this time to mitigate the anti-competitive effects of the proposed Google-ITA transaction.

• (See: Complaint, Competitive impact Statement, Proposed Final Judgement, Order, Release.)

Summary of Implications:

1. Google is clearly the DOJ's main antitrust concern.
2. DOJ is 4-0 against Google while FTC is 0-2.
3. DOJ concludes Google is a monopoly -- again.
4. Remarkably, Google is actively choosing a regulated future for itself.
5. Google is choosing the trajectory of a regulated antitrust remedy long term over the trajectory of a break-up remedy.
6. The narrow market definition is good news for those privately suing Google for antitrust violations.
7. The Google-ITA "firewall" will prove very difficult for the DOJ to police effectively.
8. The complaint mechanism is important.

As reports swirl that the FTC and DOJ may be considering a formal antitrust investigation of Google, like the EU already launched in November 2010, Google continues its deceptive, one-dimensional, superficial, antitrust defense mantra that "competition is one click away," and that Google is only focused on users and innovation.

• It is telling that just last week the FTC charged Google with deceptive privacy practices, and Google tacitly admitted its public deceptiveness and misrepresentation in submitting to the FCC's consent order; so I am not alone here in charging that Google is deceptive and misrepresents itself to the public.

So how is Google's antitrust defense deceptive?

First, Google's stale four-year antitrust mantra that competition is but a click away and Google puts users first, is deceptive because Google knows full well that competition and antitrust involves much more than just users -- as they claim -- but an entire competitive ecosystem.

When the world's most powerful company gets a new CEO for the first time in a decade, everyone naturally has a lot of questions.

• When new Google CEO Larry Page decides to become accessible to people outside the insular Googleplex, here are some key questions to ask Mr. Page about: priorities, management philosophy, privacy, antitrust, intellectual property, and social responsibility.

Priorities: