Consumer Reports, weighing in on the Verizon iPhone 4, says consumers may be better served to wait for a newer version of the smartphone. – The
Verizon Wireless iPhone is nice enough, but if we were you, we’d hold off.
In
short, that’s the opinion being offered by trusted consumer watchdog
publication Consumer Reports. In
a Jan. 11 blog post, editors Paul Reynolds and
Mike Gikas offered a summary of the quot;good, bad and unkno…
Consumer Watchdog April 21 asked the U.S. Department of Justice to launch a broad antitrust action against Google and suggested the government agency could break up Google into several companies as a remedy to alleged monopolistic practices. The problem with the monopoly argument is that Google doesn’t force what is roughly 65 percent of the U.S. search market to use its search service. If a court could not see fit to break up Microsoft a decade ago, how can a court break up Google, which has not been formally accused of anticompetitive practices?
– News Analysis: In its most aggressive position against
Google yet, Consumer Watchdog April 21 asked the U.S. Department of Justice to sue the search engine and suggested the
government agency could break up Google into several companies.
Consumer Watchdog advocate John M. Simpson argued that the
…
Consumer Watchdog advocate John Simpson pored over Google’s 2009 Form 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission and made a striking discovery. While Google listed only Microsoft and Yahoo by name in its 2008 10-K filing, the search engine listed 10 companies that it views as competitors in the 2009 document. Yahoo and Microsoft Bing are listed as Google’s chief competition in search. No surprises there. What is surprising is what company isn’t listed as a competitor. Has Apple become Google’s Lord Voldemort to the point where it dare not speak its name as the maker of the iPhone and iPad? See who and what Google regards as its foremost rivals in this eWEEK slide show.
– …
Consumer Watchdog and the Center for Digital Democracy claim Google is attempting to buy its way into the mobile advertising market and that this will lead to diminished competition for consumers.
– Two consumer groups on Dec. 28 asked the Federal Trade Commission to block
Google’s proposed acquisition of AdMob on the grounds that the $750 million
deal is anti-competitive and raises privacy concerns. Consumer Watchdog and the
Center for Digital Democracy contended in a joint letter to the FT…
By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley
A powerful alliance of privacy and consumer groups have likened behavioural advertising to "being followed by an invisible stalker."
They now want Congress to curtail the practice of tracking consumers online to tailor ads more effectively.
Yahoo, Microsoft and Google all use targeted online advertisements.
"It’s not just about the right ad at the right time, it’s about creating a profile about you," said the Centre for Digital Democracy’s Jeffrey Chester.
"These companies want to know about your likes and dislikes, if you are Hispanic, do you vote, are you on a low income or a high income, where do you travel, what do you like to read.
"It’s about a system that not only targets and influences the products you buy but is also a powerful and invisible system of digital persuasion designed to change attitudes and awareness," Mr Chester told BBC News.
The coalition of ten organisations is expected to call on the government to allow consumers to "opt in" rather than "opt out" of such advertising models.
It will also seek to ensure no data is collected around financial or health matters. The key, many say, is transparency.
"An individual’s data belongs to them and before these companies track you all over the internet, they need to be transparent about what they are doing and how they intend to use that information," said John Simpson, consumer advocate with the Consumer Watchdog.
Tracking
The call to put limits on such advertising comes as the House Commerce Committee is drafting legislation to improve consumer privacy online.
Congress held hearings on the issue in June. Testimony was provided by Facebook, Google and Yahoo.
While Yahoo and Microsoft have used behavioural advertising for some time, Google waited until March of this year to employ what is also referred to as "internet-based advertising".
In general the system uses a cookie – a small piece of text that lives inside a web browser – to track users as they visit different websites.
This information is then used to target online advertising campaigns at consumers because they tend to result in higher online ad return rates.
That means a user who is a keen traveller and visits lots of travel sites would be shown more travel-related ads.
"Golden egg"
A coalition of America’s marketing industry trade bodies, representing about 5,000 companies, published a set of seven principles in July to address concerns around the issue.
"A broad ‘opt in’ would be a sea change and it would be a recipe for disaster"
Mike Zaneis,
Interactive Advertising Bureau
"The vast majority of what happens online is truly anonymous and all marketers and publishers are trying to do is deliver an ad that has some relevancy to the person viewing it at a certain time," Mike Zaneis, vice president of public policy for the Interactive Advertising Bureau told BBC News.
"The beautiful thing is they don’t have to click on that advert, or pay attention to it or do anything."
While Mr Zaneis agreed more has to be done to educate consumers about the issue, he also warned that pushing for a blanket "opt in" measure would be disastrous.
"A broad ‘opt in’ would be a sea change and it would be a recipe for disaster. It would kill the goose laying the golden egg.
"The goose is the internet and the golden egg is the free content and services that consumers enjoy and that would be diminished," said Mr Zaneis.
Other organisations included in this broad alliance include the Consumers Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Privacy Lives, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, World Privacy Forum, Privacy Times and the Consumer Federation of America.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley
The resignation of Google’s Eric Schmidt as a director of Apple’s board has failed to halt a government inquiry into possible antitrust violations.
Mr Schmidt stepped down because the search giant’s business increasingly competes with Apple’s.
The Google CEO recused himself when Apple’s board discussed the iPhone.
In a statement the Federal Trades Commission said "we will continue to investigate remaining interlocking directorates between the companies".
"We commend them for recognising that sharing directors raises competitive issues, as Google and Apple increasingly compete with each other," said the FTC’s Bureau of Competition director Richard Feinstein.
"Clubby"
Former Genentech CEO Arthur Levinson still serves on both boards.
The Consumer Watchdog has called for him to step down from either Google or Apple to avoid antitrust violations.
"It took Eric Schmidt far too long to realise that the two roles are incompatible; that’s not surprising considering the clubby atmosphere of Silicon Valley," said the non-profit’s consumer advocate John Simpson.
"Nonetheless, we’re glad Schmidt finally did the right thing; we call on Levinson to act responsibly and choose one company or the other."
News that the FTC will continue with its inquiry has highlighted a shift in how regulators are prepared to act under a new administration said Jo-Ellen Pozner, assistant professor of organisational behaviour at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
"Clearly the tone has changed in Washington and that makes it more difficult for a marriage like this of Google and Apple at the board level to go unnoticed and not scrutinised.
"When there is a visible conflict or issue like this, regulators will pay more attention to that sector. If these firms are smart they will regulate themselves and figure out which relationships they need to keep, or rectify or fix," Ms Pozner told BBC News.
The areas of competition between the two companies include mobile telephone technology and computer operating systems.
Aside from the issue of competition, Ms Pozner noted there were some practical reasons for Mr Schmidt’s much needed departure.
"It would have been increasingly difficult to attend to board matters. Apple has a small board so there is not that much room for someone constantly recusing themselves from so many areas of discussion if you want an active board."
"Enemy"
Industry watchers said Mr Schmidt’s resignation will allow Google to take the gloves off and compete more openly with Apple. The danger warned one top blog is that it could also turn the company into public enemy number one.
"If nothing else it does mark a shift in where power resides in Silicon Valley and who is the perceived enemy," said TechCrunch co-editor Erick Schonfeld.
"For a long time you could say that Mr Schmidt on the Apple board was because both Google and Apple looked at Microsoft as the enemy, the main competition for different reasons.
"As computing shifts to these web based apps it’s almost as if Google is taking the place as the most feared company in technology. Certainly for a lot of companies it has already taken that spot," Mr Schonfeld told the BBC.
"The bigger shift that is now happening is this shift to more web centric computing and Google wants to be the central player there.
"They want to be the operating system of that world and that world doesn’t care if you are using a MacBook, an iPhone, BlackBerry or Android. All this stuff happens in the cloud," said Mr Schonfeld.
"It’s not Goggle versus Apple. It’s really Google versus the old model of computing which increasingly means Apple has more in common with Microsoft."
"Fiasco"
TechCrunch is not the only blog to warn of trouble ahead.
The highly respected blogger Om Malik of Gigaom.com has said that when it comes to the issue of smartphones the "battle between Google and Apple is going to get very ugly – as it should."
He highlighted the recent decision by the iPhone’s App store to reject an application called Google Voice. That is now being investigated by the Federal Communications Commission.
"As the Google Voice apps fiasco has taken on a life of its own, I have been busy pointing out that this battle was between Apple and Google."
The timing of Mr Schmidt’s resignation has also resulted in comment coming days after the FCC announced its inquiry.
"The way I see it, he (Mr Schmidt) got shown the door by (Apple CEO) Jobs. Back in May, Schmidt said he had no plans to resign from Apple’s board," noted Mr Malik
For Harry McCracken, the editor and founder of Technologizer there remains a lot of unanswered questions.
"I would love to know the back story here because it was late on Friday that the FCC news came out about it investigating the rejection of Google Voice and here we are a few days later and Mr Schmidt has resigned from Apple.
"From the outside it looks like there is a connection, but who knows" said Mr McCracken.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The Center for Digital Democracy and Consumer Watchdog urge the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission to look closely to make sure the at the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo search deal does not violate antitrust laws or citizens’ privacy rights. Fearing too much meddling from antitrust regulators, The Competitive Enterprise Institute calls for the DOJ and FTC to bless the deal. One reader argues that Yahoo shareholders will turn tail and run from Microsoft.
–
If Microsoft and Yahoo are to consummate their search and
search ad agreement by early 2010 to start chipping away at market leader
Google’s 65 percent market share, they are going to have to run through quite
the gauntlet of opposition.
Google hasn’t said much about the July 29 ag…
Embarrassment for OFT after its annual report reveals alleged fraud and compensation payment to staff member
It spends a lot of time warning the public about the dangers of scams, but Britain’s main consumer watchdog today revealed that it believes it has lost £250,000 after falling victim to an alleged fraud.
The admission was tucked away at the back of the Office of Fair Trading’s annual report for the last financial year, which sets out its achievements and the value for money it is delivering for British consumers.
The OFT said it had suffered “a cash loss of £250,000, of which £97,000 occurred in 2008-09, and £153,000 occurred in 2007-08″. “This was due to an alleged fraud made possible by a control weakness in the Accounts Payable process,” it said.
The watchdog was unable to say much more as the matter was the subject of legal proceedings, it added. It is understood that a former member of staff has been charged with an offence.
The report also revealed that, in a separate matter, the OFT handed over more than £250,000 in the form of a “special payment for compensation” to a member of its staff. “We don’t divulge that kind of thing,” a spokesman said when asked about the nature of the compensation payout.
The watchdog said the work it had been doing on consumer protection, competition enforcement, merger control and investigating markets had saved the British public around £409m a year between 2006 and 2009.
“This means it delivered financial benefits to consumers of around eight times its average annual costs of £53m, and exceeded the five-times cost target set by HM Treasury,” the spokesman said.
Its achievements during the year included:
• Launching its first criminal investigation under the consumer protection regulations – into an alleged unlawful pyramid scheme
• Securing the first UK criminal convictions for cartel participants in a case involving marine hoses, which are used to transfer oil from tankers to storage facilities
• Investigating alleged unlawful pricing practices in dairy and tobacco products, and alleged bid-rigging in the construction industry
