Curious. Very curious. Now reports have it that the FTC is investigating Apple for mobile ads, given what they learned from their ultimate approval of Google-Admob, despite that merger raising "serious antitrust issues." 

What's wrong with this picture?

First, apparently the FTC has concluded that the real risk to competition is not Google-AdMob (that had the #2 player Google buying #1 AdMob for ~75% market share of in-app mobile advertising), but a new entrant, Apple, that had no advertising share at all just a few months ago and bought the weak #3 competitor with less than 10% share.

Google unwisely brought closer scrutiny to Google's public representation of its business model by pushing WSJ columnist, Holman Jenkins, to run this footnote/correction: 

• "Google objected to a line in a column two weeks ago that summarized its business in part as "collecting data it can sell to advertisers." We didn't say "user data," but Google nonetheless wants you to know it doesn't sell any data directly to advertisers, and doesn't employ user data to sharpen the efficiency of its search advertising, but only its display ads."

With all of the controversy surrounding Google's business model (WiFi privacy-invasion investigations on four continents... a massive private data spill from Chinese hackers stealing Google's password security system... and increasing calls for the DOJ/EU to bring an antitrust case against Google), it seems particularly ill-advised for Google to be nitpicking about how Google wants to represent/misrepresent its business model to the public.

Let's parse Google's misleading nitpicking.

First, Google is being too cute by half in insisting its business is not as Mr. Jenkins succinctly encapsulated it to be: "collecting data it can sell to advertisers."

American consumers clearly want online privacy, per a national poll conducted over the weekend by Zogby International, that was commissioned by Precursor LLC. 

• In a nutshell, over 80% of Americans are concerned about the security and privacy of their personal information on the Internet; about 90% of Americans consider some common industry behaviors to be unfair business practices; and about 80% of Americans support a variety of stronger consumer protections of their privacy online.

More specifically, this Zogby poll asked eight timely questions that are highly pertinent to:

Google's CEO Eric Schmidt, dismissed the notion that Google was "arrogant" in an FT interview.

• Mr. Schmidt: "The arrogance comes across because we trying to do things for end-users against organised opposition from stakeholders that are unhappy -- and they paint us as arrogant. But I am sure that all successful organisations have some arrogance in them."  

It seems to me that "the arrogance comes across" with Google because Google operates, and expects to operate, under a double standard -- where rules, laws and expectations apply to others, but do not, and should not, apply to Google -- because Google is somehow special.

The latest example  of Google's expectation to be treated differently and better than Google treats everyone else -- is Google's "permissions" policy.  (See the Goobris Series below for other examples.)

To help you picture both the enormity and unprecedented power of what Google knows about you and the world's information: public, private and proprietary, I have organized all the world's information types that Google collects onto a one-page chart/PDF: "Google's 'Total Information Awareness' Power."

For those who really want to understand Google and its impact on most everyone and most everything, please read and study this one-page chart/PDF, because much valuable work and insight has gone into it.

• While the chart is visually packed with information that many may find difficult to unpack or digest, the chart itself is an apt metaphor for both how much information Google has, and also how difficult it is for all of us to get our head around all the information Google routinely collects and uses.

A short refresher on where the term "Total Information Awareness" came from and why it is aptly employed here.

The FCC has a ready-made opportunity to protect consumers by approving the simple rule updates recommended in the pending Retransmission Petition.

• The FCC has the authority and the obligation to protect consumers by updating the FCC's Section 325 rules with a functional dispute resolution framework and a mandatory interim carriage agreement during negotiations.
• Without these common sense consumer protections, consumers unnecessarily will continue to be unintended collateral damage in someone else's commercial fight.

The petition is laser-focused on updates to the FCC's rules to protect consumers from being used as pawns or hostages in commercial disputes not of their making or interest.

It is highly instructive that opponents of the retransmission petition focus most all their argumentation on protecting the status quo, that unnecessarily puts consumers directly in harms way, and that does not directly address why consumers should not be protected as recommended in the petition.

Current privacy investigations of Google deserve to be much more comprehensive than just Google's latest StreetView wardriving scandal, given that:

Often stepping back to gain perspective and to try and see the forest for the trees, can be highly instructive. However, if one steps back to see the big picture of how this FCC is attempting unilaterally to change U.S. Internet policy, the view is surreal.

Google's long-time cavalier approach to privacy and security are catching up to the company as its latest wardriving privacy scandal, appears to be spiraling out of the control of Google's legendary PR machine. 

First, the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent Google a tough investigative letter on its wanton wardriving of the U.S. The most problematic question for Google got to the root of Google's privacy scandals: "What is Google's process to ensure that data collection associated with new products and services offered by the company is adequately controlled?" This line of inquiry makes it clear this is not just a probe of this privacy incident, but of Google's systemic weaknesses in internal/management controls concerning privacy.