Google’s Privacy Policies Ranked the Worst

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

There’s a huge discussion over Google Street Views right now, and although many say there’s no expectation of privacy on a public street, it’s still under much debate. There’s also a lot more that groups, organizations, and people are concerned about with regards to Google and privacy.

Besides Street Views, examples include the recent inquiry opened by an independent European panel into whether Google’s policies meet Europe’s privacy rules as well as the concerns of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) , over the Google / Doubleclick deal.

Meanwhile, Privacy International released a report yesterday about privacy policies of various companies, including Google, Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo (a total of 22), and gave Google its lower possible grade.

London-based Privacy International assigned Google its lowest possible grade. The category is reserved for companies with “comprehensive consumer surveillance and entrenched hostility to privacy.”

None of the 22 other surveyed companies — a group that included Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and AOL — sunk to that level, according to Privacy International.

While a number of other Internet companies have troubling policies, none comes as close to Google to “achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy,” Privacy International said in an explanation of its findings. Source: Houston Chronicle

We Say: Wow, that’s pretty scathing. Google naturally issued a statement indicating that they wished Privacy International would have consulted with them before issuing the report. Although specifics were not listed in the above article, it’s still troubling that Simon Davies, the group’s director said “Under the microscope, it turns out that Google is doing much more with our data than we ever imagined.”