Google

Please read my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “Supreme Court & European Union Expose Google's Massive Privacy Liabilities.” See here.

It connects the dots of what two recent Supreme Court and three recent EU privacy decisions mean for individuals’ privacy in general and Google’s privacy liabilities in particular.

If Silicon Valley folks are indeed the smartest of the smart, how could they be so easily fooled on net neutrality?

Normally smarts distinguish between what’s testable and real versus what is the pixie-dust of dreams.  

So where’s the real data and sound scientific thinking behind Silicon Valley’s grandiose net neutrality presumptions?

Why isn’t Silicon Valley adhering to its own data-driven, scientific decision-making principles?

Summary of Silicon Valley’s 6 Biggest Net Neutrality Fantasies:

The mounting evidence indicates the FTC is AWOL on Google.

Currently there are no less than six important Google enforcement issues that that the FTC should be investigating, but apparently is not.  

In stark contrast, the EU has many serious problems with Google’s >90% dominance and its persistent disregard for Europe’s privacy, data protection and the right to be forgotten requirements.

An American Google enforcement vacuum stiffens the EU’s resolve and adds to the need and urgency for the EC to step in to preserve the rule of law in Europe.

An absentee FTC, which is largely ignoring consumer choice, also makes it harder for the U.S. to preserve the US-EU safe harbor for the handling of personal information in the pending Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Post-Snowden, the US and EU are far apart on data protection, and a glaringly absentee FTC only exacerbates that divide.

Please read my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “Google’s Right to Be Forgotten Hypocrisy.”

Whenever Google plays the victim you can bet they are hiding something. Don’t miss learning what it is.   

It is Part 42 of my Google Disrespect for Privacy series.

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Google's Disrespect for Privacy Series

Part 1: Why Google is the Biggest Threat to Americans' Privacy; House Testimony [7-18-08]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                           

July 11, 2014

Contact:  Scott Cleland 703-217-2407

Broadband Reclassification is a Problem Pretending to be a Solution; & Un-supported by the Facts, Unjustified on the Merits, & Unwise Given FCC’s Record of Title II Failures

Networks Aren’t Free; Businesses Pay for Electricity, Water, Gas, Transport & Delivery

Dear European Commission Official,

Perversely the proposed EC-Google Settlement would restrict the next EC much more than it would restrict Google.

The special Google deal would handcuff EC President-Designate Juncker’s #1 priority “to create a digital single market for consumers and businesses” and “to break down national silos… in data protection… and in competition law.”

The deal would protect Google’s current de facto digital single market from significant new EC digital competition for five years, because the deal would require the EC to shut down its Google search investigation for a five-year period.

Some things are way too important to let slip by uncontested.

The FCC has asserted a foundational regulatory premise that warrants rebuttal and disproving, given that the FCC is considering if Internet access, and Internet backbone peering, should be regulated like a utility under Title II telephone common carrier regulation.

In an important speech on Internet interconnection last month to the Progressive Policy Institute, the very able and experienced Ruth Milkman, Chairman Tom Wheeler’s Chief of Staff, asserted that “communications networks are no different” than railroad and electricity networks when it comes to interconnection. “… At bottom… the fact is that a network without connections and interconnections is one that simply doesn’t work. Disconnected networks do not serve the public interest.”

Google recently boughtDropcam for $555m, a company which makes inexpensive, easy-to-install, WiFi-video-streaming-cameras that connect to cloud-based networks for convenient monitoring, set-up and retrieval.

Please don’t miss this graphic -- here -- of how the Dropcam acquisition fits into Google’s plans for a new ubiquitous physical surveillance network that will complement and leverage its existing virtual surveillance network.

Please see Google’s new and updated Privacy Rap Sheet here.

Google’s uniquely awful privacy record makes it wish Google had its own “right to be forgotten.”

And Google clearly wants the EC to forget its digital and data dominance, and its many abuses of dominance of Europe’s digital and data economy, because Google knows a core enabler of its market dominance is Google’s willingness to disregard privacy and data protection laws for anti-competitive first-mover advantage.

Google knows data protection rules, and requirements of consumer consent are impediments to gaining dominance -- so it simply ignores them while publicly proclaiming to respect them. Google has learned that its willingness to do what other competitors will not is an unbeatable competition advantage in the marketplace.   

Google’s Privacy Rap Sheet

Thanks and Kudos to Mike Wendy of Media Freedom for this <3 minute commentary (video here) about how naïve Silicon Valley is in pushing for broadband regulation that could easily boomerang and apply to core parts of Silicon Valley’s distribution and cloud  businesses.

They are living proof of the old adage: be careful of what you ask for, you may just get it.

They also could find themselves getting acquainted with a new adage: live by three FCC votes, die by three FCC votes.