On Saturday, a London-based privacy advocacy group, Privacy International, released the preliminary results of a six-month survey of Internet privacy practices. The organization evaluated 23 Internet companies on several criteria, and assigned each company a color-coded privacy assessment, ranging from green ("privacy-friendly and privacy enhancing") to black ("comprehensive consumer surveillance & entrenched hostility to privacy").
No companies received a green rating in the study, although a handful were assessed at the next level down ("generally privacy-aware but in need of improvement"). What is really causing a stir, however, is that Privacy International ranked just one major Internet company in the black: Google.
"We are aware that the decision to place Google at the bottom of the ranking is likely to be controversial," the report said, "but throughout our research we have found numerous deficiencies and hostilities in Google's approach to privacy that go well beyond those of other organizations. While a number of companies share some of these negative elements, none comes close to achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy."
'Designed To Raise Awareness'
Jeff Chester, the founder and CEO of the Center for Digital Democracy, said that he thought the privacy assessment was fair. "The methodology that Privacy International utilized to determine concerns about privacy was reasonable," he said. "It was a thoughtful and serious analysis designed to raise awareness."
Chester said that the low ranking reflects a failure of leadership. "Google's leadership has failed to address the serious privacy concerns express by privacy advocates over its data  collection policies," he argued. "I say this with the DoubleClick acquisition in mind. For me, that's the tipping point when it comes to Google and privacy."
Google Predictably Disagrees
The response from Google to the Privacy International report was predictably incredulous. In a statement released to the media, Nicole Wong, Google's associate general counsel, said that the Privacy International report was based on "numerous inaccuracies and misunderstandings about our services."
"We stand by our record," she added "for protecting user privacy and offering products that are transparent about what information is collected and empower users to control their personal information."
Matt Cutts, the head of Google's Webspam team, offered a point-by-point refutation of the Privacy International study in his personal blog, and concluded by saying that "[p]ersonally, I think Privacy International should feel remorse about walking right past several other companies to single out Google for their lowest rating." (continued...)
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