Privacy

The FTC’s Googlegate cover-up problem is that while the FTC may be telling the truth, they apparently are not telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Don’t miss the brief summary below of the role political influence played in the politically messy closure of the FTC-Google antitrust investigation in 2013.

The evidence of FTC special treatment for Google, coupled with an apparent FTC cover-up of the political influence that may have defanged the FTC’s investigative process, is particularly relevant to: the European Commission’s current antitrust investigation of Google’s abuses of its <90% dominance in Europe; reported U.S. Senate oversight interest in the FTC’s closure of the Google investigation; and Mississippi AG Jim Hood’s State-led antitrust and consumer protection investigation of Google.

On February 26^th, the FCC executed President Obama’s call to “implement the strongest possible rules” to regulate the Internet as a telephone utility under “Title II” of the Telecommunications Act.

Legally, the result of this “reclassification” was for President Obama and the FCC to assert regulatory jurisdiction over the Internet ecosystem, creating a de facto American “Digital [Internet] Single Market” industrial policy, like the European Commission is in the process of creating for the European Union.

Legally, America now has a single digital telecommunications/Internet market/ecosystem because the FCC is effectively reclassifying Internet traffic as Title II telecommunications and Title II is a holistic, end-to-end, 1934 regulatory regime designed for the FCC to decide most everything in the assumed monopoly telecommunications ecosystem from originating and terminating local access, long distance, phone and network equipment manufacturing, directories, etc.

Please don’t miss my Daily Caller  op-ed: “How America Protects National Champion Google in the EU”

• It spotlights the facts of how exceptionally integrated Google has become with the U.S. Government on most all of the commercial matters most critical to Google’s business success.

***

Google Unaccountability Series

Part 0: Google's Poor & Defiant Settlement Record [5-1-12]

Part 1: Why Google Thinks It Is Above the Law [4-17-12]

I was asked to speak at CPAC 2015 on a February 28^thpanel at National Harbor on Google entitled: “The United States of Google: Big Brother & Big Data” with Seton Motley of Less Government and Erik Telford of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

My power point presentation, “Google’s Anti-Conservative Values,” for the first time contrasted the traditional conservative values of the American Conservative Union with Google’s values.

Below is an outline of my remarks:

Google Has Anti-Conservative Values

The FCC’s official confirmation that it will reclassify wireline and wireless broadband as Title II “telecommunications,” and that it also will apply Title II “Section 222: Privacy of Customer Information” has sweeping, under-appreciated, and negative implications for Google Inc.

Google will certainly be captured by the new privacy regulations. Given its core business model of monetizing users’ information without their meaningful permission, and given its industry-worst privacy record and rampant Android security problems protecting users’ private information, Google will own more serious Section 222 privacy liabilities than any FCC captured entity -- by far.  

Google quietly signed the U.S. Student Privacy Pledge, which makes its new privacy representations legally enforceable by the FTC and State Attorneys General.

This is a much-under-appreciated, high-risk decision for Google because its new student privacy commitments conflict with Google’s Apps for Education contracts with schools, and it is antithetical to Google’s longstanding business model, practices, and privacy track record.

Google may already be breaking this privacy promise because it is “How Google Works” -- as you will learn below.  

January 21, 2015

Memorandum For: All 2015 Davos Attendees

From: Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, Davos Man, & Co-Chair of Davos 2015

Subject: Welcome & Davos 2015 Orientation Information

Google and the World Economic Forum welcome you to the first of many Davos G-1 Summits!

Google is honored to sponsor and co-opt this august event because so many European heads of state, government officials, and elites will be here for the influencing.

Our mission here will be to organize Davos’ information and make it universally accessible and useful.  

Your privacy is our highest priority. Let us reassure you that what happens in Davos, stays in Davos.

Google’s high altitude balloons and drones will provide all Davos’ Internet access. Android and Google+ will be the official Davos operating system and social networking platform respectively. And Google Translate will be the only approved translation service.

As EC law enforcement confronts Google’s uniquely extensive wrongdoing in competition, privacy/security, property, and tax matters, it is critical to examine if Google’s longstanding public promises to consumers to gain their trust are in fact true and trustworthy.

Central to law enforcement’s role in determining the extent of its Google charges, penalties and remedies is determining whether or not the infractions were willful or unintentional.

Google will bully most any entity or anyone, if it thinks it can get away with it.

Google just filed a highly-unusual, and exceptionally-aggressive, lawsuit that asks a Federal Court to issue a restraining order to preemptively shut down a broad and ongoing State Attorney Generals law enforcement investigation into Google’s alleged willful blindness to advertising and profiting from well-known, recurring, illegal activities on Google’s platform.

Below are my fun and satirical lyrics to: “We Will Track You,” which is a political parody/satire of Google’s essence -- sung to the classic tune:  “We Will Rock You,” by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band, Queen, which was written by Frank Holdgren.

• Here is the Amazon link to Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” CD for purchase for those few that are unfamiliar with this classic tune and musical.   

We Will Track You

Nothin’s private you can’t survive it

So long to privacy cause we love our piracy

We put Glass on your face