Google and Facebook upset more privacy people
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Google and Facebook drew fire today from privacy advocates in the U.S. and Canada, respectively.
Jeff Chester of the nonprofit Center for Digital Democracy complained to the Federal Trade Commission that Google had quietly changed its practice on behavioral targeting for display advertisements. Google had been more conservative than many other sites.
Google generally has used only the information generated in a single search session to decide what ads would appeal to a searcher. Last week, though, it opened up its ad network to a number of outside companies, including Mediaplex and others that specialize in profiling users based on where they go on the Web.
Google privacy official Jane Horvath confirmed in an e-mail to Chester that those companies could use cookies, which are tied to specific users, in choosing which ads to show to whom. She told him...
... the ad companies couldn’t tie that data to ‘personal information’ that would make it easy to get the name of the searcher.
Since Google knows more about most people than do their mothers, Chester argues that the change should get more attention that it has.
Google’s written response wasn’t entirely helpful: ‘Google is allowing advertisers to work with approved third parties to serve and measure ad campaigns on the Google Content Network. Opening up our network to third parties has not changed Google’s targeting practices.’
The company might also want to polish its defense to a question raised by the New York Times this morning. In a Web posting, the other Times wondered if Google was running afoul of a California law it said requires most Web companies to post privacy policies on their ‘homepage or first significant page.’ Google’s policy is buried on its ‘About’ page, which probably doesn’t qualify.
Google told other Times and this Times that it was exempt from that requirement because Google wasn’t a ‘commercial website’ but a ‘service.’
We pointed out that a better argument could be had another part of the law, which says all a commercial site needs is ‘any other functional hyperlink [to a privacy policy] that is so displayed that a reasonable person would notice it.’
A Google spokesman responded: ‘You’re right. That provision as well.’
Elsewhere on the planet, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic asked that country’s Privacy Commission to start poking Facebook.
More than 20 alleged legal shortcomings were cited in the 36-page report by the University of Ottawa-based group. Said law student and contributor Harley Finkelstein: ‘Even if you select the strongest privacy settings, your information may be shared more widely if your Facebook Friends have lower privacy settings. As well, if you add a third party application offered on Facebook, you have no choice but to let the application developer access all your information even if they don’t need it.’
Facebook said there were factual errors in the Canadian report. ‘We look forward to working with Commissioner Stoddart to set the record straight,’ the company said in a statement.
-- Joseph Menn