Privacy concerns with Google include a wide range of issues and controversies related to collection, use, and sharing of user data across Google products, services, and platforms, including Google Search. Since the mid-2000s, civil liberties organizations and government regulators have criticized and taken action against Google related to Internet privacy issues in its data collection and data retention policies, web tracking practices, cooperation with intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies, and other activities. These concerns are a frequent theme in criticism of Google.
The Technical Feasibility of Divesting Google Chrome – Knight-Georgetown Institute
As the European Commission advances efforts under the Digital Markets Act to require Google to share its search data with competitors, lessons from historic antitrust remedies underscore how data access could be transformational in the AI-powered search market. While the Commission’s proposals represent a novel and comprehensive approach, key improvements to data scope and sharing frequency, privacy protections, and dispute resolution are needed. US courts and enforcers charged with implementing similar provisions should take note.
Google and Amazon: Acknowledged Risks, and Ignored Responsibilities
In late 2024, we urged Google and Amazon to honor their human rights commitments. Since then, a stream of additional reporting has reinforced that our concerns were well-founded. Yet despite mounting
EFF to State AGs: Investigate Google's Broken Promise to Users
Google's Failure to Warn Users About Law Enforcement Demands for Data Is Deceptive
Revealed: Google facilitated Russia and China’s censorship requests
An investigation has exposed the tech firm’s cooperation with autocratic regimes to remove unfavourable content
A Former Google Engineer Built a Search Engine for Finding Every Privacy Violation You Face Online
Former Google engineer Tim Libert is releasing a search engine, webXray, that aims to find illicit online data collection and tracking—with the goal of becoming “the Henry Ford of tech lawsuits.”
Privacy and human behavior in the age of information
This Review summarizes and draws connections between diverse streams of empirical research on privacy behavior. We use three themes to connect insights from social and behavioral sciences: people's uncertainty about the consequences of privacy-related behaviors and their own preferences over those consequences; the context-dependence of people's concern, or lack thereof, about privacy; and the degree to which privacy concerns are malleable—manipulable by commercial and governmental interests. Organizing our discussion by these themes, we offer observations concerning the role of public policy in the protection of privacy in the information age.
Google Is Building an A.I. Fence Around the Internet It Once Championed
As Google incorporates more artificial intelligence into search, people are spending more time on Google. Some website operators are crying foul.
Google Is Building an A.I. Fence Around the Internet It Once Championed
As Google incorporates more artificial intelligence into search, people are spending more time on Google. Some website operators are crying foul.
Google’s Chrome Antitrust Paradox
This Article examines Google’s dominance of the browser market, highlighting how Google’s Chrome browser plays a critical role in reinforcing Google’s dominance in other markets. While Google portrays Chrome as a neutral platform built on open-source technologies, this Article shows that Chrome is, in fact, instrumental in Google’s strategy to reinforce its dominance in the online advertising, publishing, and browser markets. The examination of Google’s strategic acquisitions, anticompetitive practices, and the implementation of so-called “privacy controls” underlines that Chrome is far from a neutral gateway to the web. Rather, it serves as a key tool for Google to maintain and extend its market power, often to the detriment of competition and innovation in the digital economy.This Article illustrates how Chrome not only bolsters Google’s position in online advertising and publishing through practices such as coercion and self-preferencing, but also leverages its advertising clout to engage in a “pay-to-play” paradigm—the cornerstone of Google’s larger strategy of market control. It also outlines potential regulatory interventions and remedies by drawing on historical antitrust precedents. Lastly, this Article proposes a triad of solutions motivated by an analysis of Google’s abuse of Chrome, including behavioral remedies targeting specific anticompetitive practices, structural remedies involving an internal separation of Google’s divisions, and divestiture of Chrome from Google into an independent organization.Despite Chrome’s dominance and its critical role in Google’s ecosystem, as well as its recent legal troubles with the Department of Justice, it so far has avoided significant antitrust action. A key reason for this inaction lies in the long-standing precedent supporting the hegemony of technology firms and the uncertainty surrounding Chrome’s viability as a standalone entity. This Article attempts to address these issues to enable antitrust actions that are essential in remedying current market imbalances. Such actions are also critical to mitigate future threats to competition from an increasingly monopolistic technology landscape, thereby fostering a competitive digital environment that promotes innovation and protects consumer interests.
How GDPR Will Change The Way You Develop — Smashing Magazine
GDPR requires you to be more thoughtful about the sites and services you build, more transparent about the ways you collect and use data, more considerate of your users, and more thorough in your development and documentation processes. In this article, Heather Burns will explore what you, as a developer, need to know about the new data protection regime. At the end, you’ll understand how the challenges posed by the privacy overhaul will ultimately help to make you a better developer.
Privacy concerns with Facebook
Facebook and other services by Meta Platforms (doing business as Meta) have faced a number of privacy concerns. These stem partly from the company's revenue model that involves selling information collected about its users for many things including advertisement targeting. Meta has also been a part of many data breaches that have occurred within the company. These issues and others are further described including user data concerns, vulnerabilities in the company's platform, investigations by pressure groups and government agencies, and even issues with students. In addition, employers and other organizations/individuals have been known to use Meta for their own purposes. As a result, individuals' identities and private information have sometimes been compromised without their permission. In response to these growing privacy concerns, some pressure groups and government agencies have increasingly asserted the users' right to privacy and to be able to control their personal data.
Why Big Tech's Privacy Promises Are Lies
Google’s work in schools aims to create a ‘pipeline of future users,’ internal documents say
A major lawsuit revealed details of Google's business motivations to get its products into schools. A Google spokesperson said the documents "mischaracterize our work."
The Case Against Google (Published 2018)
Critics say the search giant is squelching competition before it begins. Should the government step in?
GDPR, China and data sovereignty are ultimately wins for Amazon and Google | TechCrunch
The Great Privacy Policy Email Deluge of 2018 may have finally petered out, but we are just starting to build an understanding of who the winners and
