Concerns about the reach and behavior of tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Amazon.com touch on questions of antitrust, data privacy and consumer rights. How these complaints are pursued appears to depend as much on the balance of power between regulators in a given country, as on the substance of the alleged abuse.
In Europe, Google was originally investigated by Sweden's data-protection regulator earlier this year for potential breaches of the GDPR. That followed simultaneous, identical complaints from consumer organizations to several national privacy watchdogs in the EU.
Australian Regulator Investigates Google Data
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A lack of competition for Google and a lack of transparency in the digital advertising supply chain needed to be addressed because they were impacting publishers, advertisers and consumers, Australia's competition watchdog said on Thursday. googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1453799284784-2'); ); The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released its interim report on its inquiry into the Google-dominated digital advertising services industry in Australia that is worth 3.4 billion Australian dollars ($2.6 billion) a year.The industry allows advertisers to buy access to consumers' eyeballs almost instantaneously through an automated bidding process, flashing up products that supposedly align with the individual consumers' personal interests. Such individually tailored ads can follow consumers around the internet.Google not only powers the digital display technology, it also controls much of the advertising space.Commission chair Rod Sims said "there is a real lack of competition, choice and transparency in this industry" that add to advertisers' costs and increase prices paid by consumers."Google's significant presence across the whole ad tech supply chain, combined with its significant data advantage, means Google is likely to have the ability and the incentive to preference its own ad tech businesses in ways that affect competition," Sims wrote."During this inquiry, we have heard concerns from parties about potential conflicts of interest from Google's various roles in this industry. This includes Google very often acting on behalf of both publishers and advertisers for the same ad sale across the ad tech supply chain, while also selling its own ad inventory," Sims added.A lawsuit announced last month from several U.S. states alleges Google engaged in "anti-competitive conduct" in online advertising and used its "monopolistic power" to control the prices and eliminate competition. Google is calling the suit "meritless" and says the price of online advertising has fallen over the last decade. According to filing records, Texas is suing along with Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Utah.Sims suggested Australia create rules to manage conflicts of interest and to prevent Google from potentially preferring its own businesses.The commission noted that competition regulators in Britain and the European Union had raised similar issues.The commission also suggested mandatory breaking up of datasets held by large incumbents so that rival ad tech providers could more easily compete.Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.Google has been battling the Australian competition watchdog on several fronts in recent years.Google last week threatened to make its search engine unavailable if the government went ahead with plans to make it and Facebook pay for Australian news content.The government has drafted legislation based on the watchdog's media code to force the U.S. tech giants pay Australian news businesses fair compensation for their content.The commission has also sued Google, alleging the platform broke consumer law by misleading Android users about how their location data was collected and used. Google has denied the allegation.The commission will make its final report to the government of its digital advertising services inquiry on Aug. 31. 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Google acknowledged last month that it had mistakenly collected fragments of data over public Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries while it was taking pictures of neighborhoods for the Street View feature. Google said it discovered the problem after German regulators launched an inquiry into the matter.
Internet giant Google said sorry to New Zealanders Tuesday for collecting personal data from wireless networks for its "Street View" mapping service, in the latest in a series of apologies. googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1449240174198-2'); ); The company said it did not realise until earlier this year that cars it was using to photograph public streets were also gathering information known as "payload data" sent over unsecured Wi-Fi systems.Unencrypted information sent on Wi-Fi systems that are not password-protected potentially contains personal information, including the content of e-mails.Google said as soon as it realised its error, it garaged the Street View cars and began working with the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff on ways to address the problem."Our collection of payload data was a mistake for which we are sincerely sorry, and we’d like to apologise to all New Zealanders," Google said on its New Zealand blog.Google announced in May that its Street View cars, taking photographs of cities in more than 30 countries, had inadvertently gathered data sent over unsecured Wi-Fi systems, sparking complaints by data regulators worldwide.In Britain, Google agreed to delete private emails and passwords, while in Australia it was found to have broken privacy laws but no punishment could be imposed.The company is being sued in the US, while in Germany it agreed to allow people to opt out of Street View over privacy concerns, in which case their houses would be pixellated.On its New Zealand blog Google said the company had never used payload data in its products or services but acknowledged there was public concern about its actions."Some people felt we should have been more explicit about what we were collecting," it said."We also think we should have had greater transparency around our initial collection of publicly broadcast Wi-Fi network information. We’re sorry for not realising this sooner."Shroff welcomed Google's apology but warned its initial actions were "not good enough" when it collected the content of people's communications."It is important that Google makes sure that these mistakes do not keep happening," she said in a statement."For technology to be successful, people need to trust it. If they don't trust it, they won't use it."Shroff said Google had committed to improving staff training on privacy issues and checking new products carefully before they were released.The privacy commissioner referred the matter to police in June and specialist cyber crime officers reported three months later that they did not believe a criminal offence had been committed.However, they said the case underlined the need for Web users to put in place security measures when using Wi-Fi systems. (c) 2010 AFP 2ff7e9595c
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