Google under fire from all sides

E-Brief News reports that it\'s a grey area, but there is a growing consensus that Google\'s Web services pose a major threat to consumer privacy. And the search giant, which has more than 60% of the world\'s Web search business, is now seeking to ease the concerns of regulators in Europe and the US as well as privacy activists. It\'s no secret that every time a Google user searches the Web, the company gathers information about that person\'s tastes, interests and beliefs that could potentially be used by third parties such as advertisers. Google shares general user statistics but is adamant that it never shares personal data outside the company. Nevertheless, it is scaling back how long it keeps personally identifiable data accumulated from its Web users, seeking to mollify a EU watchdog that has questioned its privacy policies. The Economic Times reports that it is ready to curtail the time it stores user data to a year-and-a-half, the low end of an 18 to 24-month period it had originally proposed to regulators in March. Google said it was studying how it could meet the concerns of European regulators over cookies, a widely-used consumer tracking technology that Web sites rely on to customise what users see and advertisers use to target ads. Full Economic Times report

There are other privacy concerns: street-scene photographs added to Google Maps and Earth last week capture passers-by in delicate situations and have privacy advocates accusing the search firm of breaking its \'Don\'t be Evil\' code. According to a report on the News24 site, Google\'s \'Street View\' feature weaves photographs into seamless panoramas of parts of San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Denver, Miami, and renowned technology Mecca Silicon Valley in northern California. Privacy advocates counter that it also provides offensively candid glimpses of people unwittingly photographed while going about their daily lives. Pictures show what appears to be men urinating in a street. Young women are pictured in skimpy swimsuits sunbathing near Stanford University, the California alma mater of Google\'s founders. Full report on the News24 site

When it comes to snooping in cyberspace, Google is the online world\'s biggest brother. According to a Mail & Guardian Online report, the California-based company, famed for its enlightened style of management, is painted in a less flattering light in the first attempt to rank Internet companies on their respect for users\' privacy. The human rights campaign Privacy International, which conducts an annual audit ranking countries according to how they respect their citizens\' privacy, has analysed the world\'s leading Internet companies. The firms analysed, including Microsoft, Apple, eBay and Yahoo!, were placed along a spectrum ranging from black to yellow, with black signalling the worst invaders of users\' privacy and yellow those that showed the most respect. Only Google achieved the black ranking. Out-Law.com reports that a blog from one Google staffer noted that the search giant was not credited for refusing to hand over user data to the US Government, that it didn\'t leak users\' search queries like AOL had, and that it now promises to anonymise search queries after 18 months. Privacy International looked at 23 companies and measured 20 parameters, such as whether a company had privacy department, what kinds of information it collects, and how data is retained. Full Mail & Guardian Online report Full Out-Law.com report To view Privacy International\'s Privacy Rankings