Criticism of Google
Encyclopedia
Criticism of Google includes possible misuse and manipulation of search results, its use of others' intellectual property
, concerns that its compilation of data may violate people's privacy
, possible censorship
of search results and content, and the energy consumption of its servers as well as concerns over traditional business issues such as antitrust
, monopoly
, and restraint of trade
.
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing
, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords
program. Google's stated mission
is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," but this mission, and the means used to accomplish it, have raised concerns among the company's critics. Much of the criticism pertains to issues that have not yet been addressed by cyber law.
by linking the phrase "out-of-touch executives" to Google's own page on its corporate management. The attempt was mistakenly attributed to disgruntled Google employees by The New York Times
, which later printed a correction.
A group of Austrian researchers warns that page rank can be influenced by individual views of the Google staff: "it became clear that not only mathematical algorithms and software, but also human brains in the Google headquarters will edit information processed by Google and decide what will go online and in which form."
Daniel Brandt started the Google Watch website and has criticized Google's PageRank
algorithms, saying that they discriminate against new websites and favor established sites.
Chris Beasley started Google Watch Watch and disagrees, saying that Mr. Brandt overstates the amount of discrimination that new websites face and that new websites will naturally rank lower when the ranking is based on a site's "reputation". In Google's world a site's reputation is in part determined by how many and which other sites link to it (links from sites with a "better" reputation of their own carry more weight). Since new sites will seldom be as heavily linked as older more established sites, they aren't as well known, won't have as much of a reputation, and will receive a lower page ranking.
In testimony before a U.S. Senate antitrust
panel in September 2011, Jeffrey Katz, the chief executive of NexTag
, said that Google’s business interests conflict with its engineering commitment to an open-for-all Internet and that: "Google doesn’t play fair. Google rigs its results, biasing in favor of Google Shopping and against competitors like us." Jeremy Stoppelman, the chief of Yelp, said sites like his have to cooperate with Google because it is the gateway to so many users and “Google then gives its own product preferential treatment.” In earlier testimony at the same hearing Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman, said that Google does not "cook the books" to favor its own products and services.
Numerous companies and individuals, for example, MyTriggers.com and transport tycoon Sir Brian Souter have voiced concerns regarding the fairness of Google's PageRank and search results after their web sites disappeared from Google's first-page results. In the case of MyTriggers.com, the Ohio-based shopping comparison search site accused Google of favoring its own services in search results (although the judge eventually ruled that the site failed to show harm to other similar businesses). Souter accused Google of censoring his personal website, www.BrianSouter.com.
and the Association of American University Presses
have both issued statements strongly opposing Google Print, stating that "Google, an enormously successful company, claims a sweeping right to appropriate the property of others for its own commercial use unless it is told, case by case and instance by instance, not to."
On September 20, 2005, the Authors Guild, a group that represents 8,000 U.S. authors, filed a class action suit in federal court in Manhattan against Google over its unauthorized scanning and copying of books through its Google Library program. Google responded that its use was a fair use
because they were only showing "snippets" for books where they did not have permission from a rightsholder and was in compliance with all existing and historical applications of copyright laws regarding books. Google temporarily suspended scanning copyrighted works to allow for changes to its program and allow copyright owners to submit lists of books they wished to be excluded. In the Spring of 2006 the parties began negotiations in hopes of settling the lawsuit.
On October 28, 2008, Google announced a proposed agreement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers
in which Google would pay $125 million to settle the lawsuit. The agreement also included licensing provisions, allowing Google to sell personal and institutional subscriptions to its database of books. On November 9, 2009, the parties filed an amended settlement agreement after the U.S. Department of Justice filed a brief suggesting that the initial agreement may violate US anti-trust laws.
Following a Fairness Hearing in February, on March 22, 2011 supervising judge Denny Chin
issued a ruling rejecting the settlement. Chin urged that the settlement be revised from "opt-out" to "opt-in" and set a date for a "status conference" at which to discuss next steps. As of mid-September 2011 settlement discussions were continuing, but a discovery and briefing schedule was also established that would bring the case to a hearing sometime in the second half of 2012, if a settlement is not reached before then.
and the Church of Scientology
have used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
to demand that Google remove references to allegedly copyright
ed material on their sites. While Google potentially faces lawsuits when not removing such links, critics argue that Google has an obligation to direct users to intended content and not censor results based on copyright.
The New York Times
has complained that the caching
of their content during a web crawl, a feature utilized by search engines including Google Web Search, violates copyright
. Google observes Internet standard mechanisms for requesting that caching be disabled via the robots.txt file, which is another mechanism that allows operators of a website to request that part or all of their site not be included in search engine results, or via META tags, which allow a content editor to specify whether a document can be crawled or archived, or whether the links on the document can be followed. The U.S. District Court of Nevada ruled that Google's caches do not constitute copyright infringement under American law
in Field v. Google
and Parker v. Google.
Privacy International
has raised concerns regarding the dangers and privacy implications of having a centrally-located, widely popular data warehouse of millions of Internet users' searches, and how under controversial existing U.S. law, Google can be forced to hand over all such information to the U.S. government
. In its 2007 Consultation Report, Privacy International ranked Google as "Hostile to Privacy", its lowest rating on their report, making Google the only company in the list to receive that ranking.
, which can be used to track a person's search history, on each registered user's computer. Google uses the cookies to maintain user preferences between sessions and offer other search features. Originally the cookie did not expire until 2038, although it could be manually deleted by the user or refused by setting a browser preference. As of 2007, Google's cookie expired in two years, but renewed itself whenever a Google service is used. And more recently Google anonymizes its IP data after 9 months and its cookies after 18 months.
Microsoft
's Bing uses cookies which expire after 18 months. Yahoo! Search
had been holding most data for 90 days, but changed to an 18 month retention period in mid-2011. An alternative, Scroogle Scraper, uses Google search, but does not store cookies on users' computers.
There is no evidence that Google shares this information with law enforcement or other government agencies, though some users remain anxious about the possibility. And newspaper articles about the October 2011 Quebec murder trial of Mohammad Shafia, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, and their son, Hamed, 21 report that records of "google inquiries" on Mr. Shafia’s home computer were entered as evidence in the trial.
Steve Ballmer
(Microsoft's CEO), Liz Figueroa
, Mark Rasch
, and the editors of Google Watch believe the processing of email message content by Google's Gmail
service goes beyond proper use. Google Inc. claims that mail sent to or from Gmail is never read by a human being other than the account holder, and content that is read by computers is only used to improve the relevance of advertisements.
The privacy policies of other popular email services, like Hotmail
and Yahoo, allow users' personal information to be collected and utilized for advertising purposes.
(NSA) and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), going as far as saying that Facebook and Google are CIA fronts. U.S. intelligence agencies are reported to use Google software to support their work.
In February 2010 Google was reported to be working on an agreement with the NSA to investigate recent attacks against its network. And, while the deal did not give NSA access to Google's data on users’ searches or e-mail communications and accounts and Google was not sharing proprietary data with the agency, privacy and civil rights advocates were concerned.
In October 2004 Google acquired Keyhole
, a 3D mapping company. In February 2004, before its acquisition by Google, Keyhole received an investment from In-Q-Tel
, the CIA's investment arm. And in July 2010 it was reported that the investment arms of both the CIA (In-Q-Tel) and Google (Google Ventures
) were investing in Recorded Future
, a company specializing in predictive analytics
—monitoring the web in real time and using that information to predict the future. And, while private corporations have been using similar systems since the 1990s, the involvement of Google and the CIA with their large data stores raises privacy concerns.
For the period between July and December 2009 Brazil topped the list for user data requests with 3,663, while the US made 3,580, the UK 1,166, and India 1,061. Brazil also made the largest number of requests to remove content with 291, followed by Germany with 188, India with 142, and the US with 123. Google, who stopped offering search services in China a month before the data was released, said it could not release information on requests from the Chinese government because such information is regarded as a state secret.
Google's chief legal officer said, "The vast majority of these requests are valid and the information needed is for legitimate criminal investigations or for the removal of child pornography".
has been accused of taking pictures and viewing too far into people's private homes and/or too close to people on the street when they do not know they are being photographed.
s of data from users of public WiFi
stations (which are not owned by Google) during 2006–2010, including snippets of private data such as e-mail. No disclosures or privacy policy
was given to those affected or to the owners of the WiFi stations, in more than 30 countries.
Google apologized, said they were "acutely aware that we failed badly here" in terms of privacy protection, that they were not aware of the problem until an inquiry from German regulators was received, that the private data was collected inadvertently, and that none of the private data was used in Google's search engine or other services. A representative of Consumer Watchdog
replied, "Once again, Google has demonstrated a lack of concern for privacy. Its computer engineers run amok, push the envelope and gather whatever data they can until their fingers are caught in the cookie jar." In a sign that legal penalties may result, Google said it will not destroy the data until permitted by regulators.
, Google's microblogging service. Anyone with a Gmail account is automatically added as a contact to pre-existing Gmail contacts, and must opt-out if they do not wish to participate.
The launch of Google Buzz as an "opt-out" social network immediately drew criticism for violating user privacy because it automatically allowed Gmail users' contacts to view their other contacts.
On October 19, at the Web 2.0 Summit, Google executive Vic Gundotra
revealed that Google+ will begin supporting pseudonyms and other types of identity within a few months.
compromise
d to protect YouTube
users' personal data in their $1 billion copyright lawsuit. Google agreed it will anonymize user information and internet protocol addresses from its YouTube subsidiary before handing the data over to Viacom. The privacy deal also applied to other litigants including the FA Premier League
, the Rodgers & Hammerstein organization and the Scottish Premier League
. The deal however did not extend the anonymity to employees, because Viacom wishes to prove that Google staff are aware of the uploading of illegal material to the site. The parties therefore will further meet on the matter lest the data be made available to the court.
(EU) data protection officials (the Article 29
working party who advise the EU on privacy policy) have written to Google asking the company to justify its policy of keeping information on individuals' internet searches for up to two years. The letter questioned whether Google has "fulfilled all the necessary requirements" on the EU laws concerning data protection. The probe by the EU into the data protection issue, is continuing. On June 1 Google agreed that its privacy policy is vague, and that they are constantly working at making it clearer to users. The resulting modifications to its privacy policies have been met with praise.
In November 2010, vandals in Germany targeted houses that had opted out of Google's Street View.
In April 2011 Google announced that it will not expand its Street View program in Germany, but what has already been shot–around 20 cities' worth of pictures–will remain available. This decision came in spite of an earlier Berlin State Supreme Court ruling that Google's Street View program was legal.
in the English Channel
were vandalized.
filed a motion in federal court to force Google to comply with a subpoena
for, "the text of each search string entered onto Google's search engine over a two-month period (absent any information identifying the person who entered such query)." Google fought the subpoena, due to concerns about users' privacy. In March 2006, the court ruled partially in Google's favor, recognizing the privacy implications of turning over search terms and refusing to grant access.
In April 2008 a Pittsburgh couple, Aaron and Christine Boring, sued Google for "invasion of privacy". They claimed that Street View made a photo of their home available online, and it diminished the value of their house, which was purchased for its privacy. They lost their case in a Pennsylvania court. "While it is easy to imagine that many whose property appears on Google's virtual maps resent the privacy implications, it is hard to believe that any – other than the most exquisitely sensitive – would suffer shame or humiliation," Judge Hay ruled; the Boring family was paid one dollar by Google for the incident.
In May 2010 a U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon ordered Google to hand over two copies of wireless data that the company's Street View
program collected as it photographed neighborhoods.
its search results, many times in compliance with the laws of various countries, most notably in China
.
-related legal complaints, such as in 2002 when Google censored websites that provided information critical of Scientology
. Furthermore, in February 2003, Google stopped showing the advertisements of Oceana
, a non-profit organization protesting a major cruise ship operation's sewage treatment practices. Google cited its editorial policy at the time, stating "Google does not accept advertising if the ad or site advocates against other individuals, groups, or organizations." The policy was later changed.
In the United Kingdom, it was reported that Google had 'delisted' Inquisition 21st Century, a website which claims to challenge moral authoritarian and sexually absolutist ideas in the United Kingdom. Google later released a press statement suggesting Inquisition 21 had attempted to manipulate search results. In addition, in April 2008, Google refused to run ads for a UK Christian group opposed to abortion, explaining that "At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain 'abortion and religion-related content.'" In Germany and France, a study reported that approximately 113 White Nationalist
, Nazi
, anti-semitic, radical Islamic and other websites had been removed from the German and French versions of Google. Google has complied with these laws by not including sites containing such material in its search results. However, Google does list the number of excluded results at the bottom of the search result page and links to Chilling Effects for explanation.
As of January 26, 2011, Google's Auto Complete feature will not complete certain words such as "bittorrent", "torrent", "utorrent" and "rapidshare" In addition, swears and pornographic words are not completed. However, they are not censored from actual search results.
, enforced by filters colloquially known as "The Great Firewall of China". Google.cn search results were filtered so as not to bring up any results concerning the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
, sites supporting the independence movements of Tibet and Taiwan
, the Falun Gong
movement, and other information perceived to be harmful to the People's Republic of China
(PRC). Google claimed that some censorship is necessary in order to keep the Chinese government from blocking Google entirely, as occurred in 2002. The company claims it did not plan to give the government information about users who search for blocked content, and will inform users that content has been restricted if they attempt to search for it. As of 2009, Google was the only major China-based search engine to explicitly inform the user when search results are blocked or hidden.
Some Chinese Internet users were critical of Google for assisting the Chinese government in repressing its own citizens, particularly those dissenting against the government and advocating for human rights. Furthermore, Google had been denounced and called hypocritical by Free Media Movement
for agreeing to China's demands while simultaneously fighting the United States government's requests for similar information. Google China had also been condemned by Reporters Without Borders
, Human Rights Watch
and Amnesty International
.
In 2009, China Central Television
, Xinhua News Agency
, People's Daily
reported Google's "dissemination of obscene information", People's Daily claimed that "Google's 'don't be evil' motto becomes a fig leaf". Chinese government imposed administrative penalties to Google China, and demanded for a reinforcement of the censorship.
However, on January 12, 2010, in response to an apparent hacking of Google's servers in an attempt to access information about Chinese dissidents, Google announced that “we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.” On March 22, 2010, after talks with Chinese authorities failed to reach an agreement, the company redirected its censor-complying Google China
service to its Google Hong Kong service, which is outside the jurisdiction of Chinese censorship laws. However, at least as of March 23, 2010, "The Great Firewall" continues to censor search results from the Hong Kong portal, www.google.com.hk (as it does with the US portal, www.google.com) for controversial terms such as "Falun gong" and "the June 4 incident" (Tiananmen Square incident).
, the second closing of such a site within 3 months. It is not certain if the account revocations actually were on the grounds of anti-religious content, however the cases have raised questions about Google's terms in regards to AdSense/AdWords. The Adsense policy defines that "Sites displaying Google ads may not include [...] advocacy against any individual, group, or organization", which allows Google to revoke the above mentioned AdSense accounts.
In May 2011, Google cancelled the AdWord advertisement purchased by a Dublin sex worker rights group named "Turn Off the Blue Light" (TOBL), claiming that it represented an "egregious violation" of company ad policy by "selling adult sexual services". However, TOBL is a nonprofit campaign for sex worker rights and is not advertising or selling adult sexual services. In July, after TOBL members held a protest outside Google's European headquarters in Dublin and wrote to complain, Google relented, reviewed the group's website, found its content to be advocating a political position, and restored the AdWord advertisement.
website acquired by Google Inc in 2006. YouTube's Terms of Service
prohibits the posting of videos which violate copyright
s or depict pornography
, illegal acts, gratuitous violence, or hate speech
. User-posted videos that violate such terms may be removed and replaced with a message stating: "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation".
YouTube has been criticized by national governments for failing to police content. In 2006, Thailand blocked access to YouTube for users with Thai IP addresses. Thai authorities identified 20 offensive videos and demanded that YouTube remove them before it would unblock any YouTube content. In 2007 a Turkish judge ordered access to YouTube blocked because of content that insulted Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
, a crime under Turkish law. On February 22, 2008, Pakistan Telecommunications attempted to block regional access to YouTube following a government order. The attempt subsequently caused a worldwide YouTube blackout that took 2 hours to correct. Four days later, Pakistan Telecom lifted the ban after YouTube removed controversial religious comments made by a Dutch government official concerning Islam.
YouTube has also been criticized by its users for attempting to censor content. In November 2007, the account of Wael Abbas, a well known Egyptian activist who posted videos of police brutality, voting irregularities and anti-government demonstrations, was blocked for three days.
In February 2008, a video produced by the American Life League
that accused a Planned Parenthood
television commercial of promoting recreational sex was removed, then reinstated two days later. In October, a video by stand-up comic Pat Condell
criticizing the British government for officially sanctioning sharia law courts in Britain was removed, then reinstated two days later. In response, his fans uploaded copies of the video themselves, and the National Secular Society
wrote to YouTube in protest.
YouTube also pulled a video of columnist Michelle Malkin showing violence by Muslim extremists. Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, commented that while, in his opinion, Michelle Malkin disseminates bigotry in her blog, "that does not mean that this particular video is bigoted; it's not. But because it's by Malkin, it's a target."
In the case of the now-defunct Google-Yahoo! deal of 2008 — a pact for Google to sell advertising on Yahoo! search pages — the U.S. Department of Justice
found that the deal would be "materially reducing important competitive rivalry between the two companies" and would violate the Sherman Antitrust Act
.
panel in September 2011, Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman, said that “the Internet is the ultimate level playing field" where users were "one click away" from competitors. Beyond the existence of alternatives, Google's large market share was another aspect of the debate, as this exchange between Senator Herb Kohl
and Mr. Schmidt at the September Senate hearing illustrates:
Being a monopoly or having monopoly power isn't illegal in the United States. It depends on whether that power is used in ways that violate the special rules that apply to monopolies.
, and has installed solar panels on the roofs at its Mountain View
facilities. In 2010, Google also invested $39 million in wind power.
(known as "Doodles") for American patriotic
holidays such as Memorial Day
and Veterans Day
. That year, Google featured a logo commemorating Veterans Day
.
(DRM) licenses were revoked. Google gave refunds for the full amount spent on videos using "gift certificates" (or "bonuses") to their customers' "Google Checkout Account". After a public uproar, Google issued full refunds to the credit cards of the Google Video users without revoking the gift certificates.
According to software engineer Ben Lee and Product Manager Jack Menzel, the idea for search within search originated from the way users were searching. It appeared that users were often not finding exactly what they needed while trying to explore within a company site. "Teleporting" on the web, where users need only type part of the name of a website into Google (no need to remember the entire URL) in order to find the correct site, is what helps Google users complete their search. Google took this concept a step further and instead of just "teleporting", users could type in keywords to search within the website of their choice.
" while there is already an existing programming language called "Go!
".
MP Paul Keetch
and unnamed military officers criticised Google for including pictures of the outside of the headquarters of the SAS
at RAF Base Hereford
, stating that terrorists might use this information to plan attacks, rather than having to drive past it themselves. Google responded that there was no appreciable security risk and that it had no intention of removing the pictures.
On Google Maps, street view and 360 degree images of military bases were removed at the Pentagon's request.
” and the “Dutch Sandwich” – helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
, concerns that its compilation of data may violate people's privacy
Internet privacy
Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storing, repurposing, providing to third-parties, and displaying of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Privacy can entail both Personally Identifying Information or non-PII information such as a...
, possible censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
of search results and content, and the energy consumption of its servers as well as concerns over traditional business issues such as antitrust
Antitrust
The United States antitrust law is a body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior and unfair business practices. Antitrust laws are intended to encourage competition in the marketplace. These competition laws make illegal certain practices deemed to hurt businesses or consumers or both,...
, monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
, and restraint of trade
Restraint of trade
Restraint of trade is a common law doctrine relating to the enforceability of contractual restrictions on freedom to conduct business. In an old leading case of Mitchell v Reynolds Lord Smith LC said,...
.
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords
AdWords
Google AdWords is Google's main advertising product and main source of revenue. Google's total advertising revenues were USD$28 billion in 2010. AdWords offers pay-per-click advertising, cost-per-thousand advertising, and site-targeted advertising for text, banner, and rich-media ads. The AdWords...
program. Google's stated mission
Mission statement
A mission statement is a statement of the purpose of a company or organization. The mission statement should guide the actions of the organization, spell out its overall goal, provide a path, and guide decision-making...
is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," but this mission, and the means used to accomplish it, have raised concerns among the company's critics. Much of the criticism pertains to issues that have not yet been addressed by cyber law.
Possible misuse of search results
A group of Austrian researchers observed a tendency to misuse the Google engine as a "reality interface". Ordinary users as well as journalists tend to rely on the first pages of Google search, assuming that everything not listed there is either not important or merely does not exist. The researchers say that "Google has become the main interface for our whole reality. To be precise: With the Google interface the user gets the impression that the search results imply a kind of totality. In fact, one only sees a small part of what one could see if one also integrates other research tools".Danger of page rank manipulation
The page ranking algorithm of Google can and has been manipulated for political and humorous reasons. To illustrate the view that Google's search engine could be subjected to manipulation, Google Watch implemented a Google bombGoogle bomb
The terms Google bomb and Googlewashing refer to practices, such as creating large numbers of links, that cause a web page to have a high ranking for searches on unrelated or off topic keyword phrases, often for comical or satirical purposes...
by linking the phrase "out-of-touch executives" to Google's own page on its corporate management. The attempt was mistakenly attributed to disgruntled Google employees by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, which later printed a correction.
A group of Austrian researchers warns that page rank can be influenced by individual views of the Google staff: "it became clear that not only mathematical algorithms and software, but also human brains in the Google headquarters will edit information processed by Google and decide what will go online and in which form."
Daniel Brandt started the Google Watch website and has criticized Google's PageRank
PageRank
PageRank is a link analysis algorithm, named after Larry Page and used by the Google Internet search engine, that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set...
algorithms, saying that they discriminate against new websites and favor established sites.
Chris Beasley started Google Watch Watch and disagrees, saying that Mr. Brandt overstates the amount of discrimination that new websites face and that new websites will naturally rank lower when the ranking is based on a site's "reputation". In Google's world a site's reputation is in part determined by how many and which other sites link to it (links from sites with a "better" reputation of their own carry more weight). Since new sites will seldom be as heavily linked as older more established sites, they aren't as well known, won't have as much of a reputation, and will receive a lower page ranking.
In testimony before a U.S. Senate antitrust
Antitrust
The United States antitrust law is a body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior and unfair business practices. Antitrust laws are intended to encourage competition in the marketplace. These competition laws make illegal certain practices deemed to hurt businesses or consumers or both,...
panel in September 2011, Jeffrey Katz, the chief executive of NexTag
NexTag
Nextag is a price comparison service website. It started originally as a website where buyers and sellers could negotiate prices for computers and electronics products. The current business model with a focus on comparison shopping has existed since 2000. In June 2007, Providence Equity Partners...
, said that Google’s business interests conflict with its engineering commitment to an open-for-all Internet and that: "Google doesn’t play fair. Google rigs its results, biasing in favor of Google Shopping and against competitors like us." Jeremy Stoppelman, the chief of Yelp, said sites like his have to cooperate with Google because it is the gateway to so many users and “Google then gives its own product preferential treatment.” In earlier testimony at the same hearing Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman, said that Google does not "cook the books" to favor its own products and services.
Page ranking related lawsuits
In 2006, the parental advice Internet site Kinderstart.com sued Google for setting its Page rank to zero, claiming that the reset caused the site to lose 70 percent of its audience. In this lawsuit, it was stated, that "Google does not generally inform Web sites that they have been penalized nor does it explain in detail why the Web site was penalized". Kinderstart claimed that they were penalized for being a Google competitor (setting up the search engine). Kinderstart has formally lost the process (while their rank seems no longer zero). Google Incorporated claims that allowing one to win such process would set a dangerous precedent, encouraging other penalized sites to protest as well.Numerous companies and individuals, for example, MyTriggers.com and transport tycoon Sir Brian Souter have voiced concerns regarding the fairness of Google's PageRank and search results after their web sites disappeared from Google's first-page results. In the case of MyTriggers.com, the Ohio-based shopping comparison search site accused Google of favoring its own services in search results (although the judge eventually ruled that the site failed to show harm to other similar businesses). Souter accused Google of censoring his personal website, www.BrianSouter.com.
Google Print, Books, and Library
Google's ambitious plans to scan millions of books and make them readable through its search engine have been criticized for copyright violations. The Association for Learned and Professional Society PublishersAssociation for Learned and Professional Society Publishers
The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers is an international trade association of non-profit publishers created in 1972 It is the largest association of scholarly and professional publishers in the world, claiming "more than 360 members in 36 countries". It was granted in...
and the Association of American University Presses
Association of American University Presses
The Association of American University Presses is an association of mostly, but not exclusively, North American university presses...
have both issued statements strongly opposing Google Print, stating that "Google, an enormously successful company, claims a sweeping right to appropriate the property of others for its own commercial use unless it is told, case by case and instance by instance, not to."
On September 20, 2005, the Authors Guild, a group that represents 8,000 U.S. authors, filed a class action suit in federal court in Manhattan against Google over its unauthorized scanning and copying of books through its Google Library program. Google responded that its use was a fair use
Fair use
Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
because they were only showing "snippets" for books where they did not have permission from a rightsholder and was in compliance with all existing and historical applications of copyright laws regarding books. Google temporarily suspended scanning copyrighted works to allow for changes to its program and allow copyright owners to submit lists of books they wished to be excluded. In the Spring of 2006 the parties began negotiations in hopes of settling the lawsuit.
On October 28, 2008, Google announced a proposed agreement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers
Association of American Publishers
The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly...
in which Google would pay $125 million to settle the lawsuit. The agreement also included licensing provisions, allowing Google to sell personal and institutional subscriptions to its database of books. On November 9, 2009, the parties filed an amended settlement agreement after the U.S. Department of Justice filed a brief suggesting that the initial agreement may violate US anti-trust laws.
Following a Fairness Hearing in February, on March 22, 2011 supervising judge Denny Chin
Denny Chin
Denny Chin is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He was a judge on the United States district court for the Southern District of New York before joining the federal appeals bench. President Clinton nominated Chin to the district court on March 24, 1994, and...
issued a ruling rejecting the settlement. Chin urged that the settlement be revised from "opt-out" to "opt-in" and set a date for a "status conference" at which to discuss next steps. As of mid-September 2011 settlement discussions were continuing, but a discovery and briefing schedule was also established that would bring the case to a hearing sometime in the second half of 2012, if a settlement is not reached before then.
Cached data
KazaaKazaa
Kazaa Media Desktop started as a peer-to-peer file sharing application using the FastTrack protocol licensed by Joltid Ltd. and operated as Kazaa by Sharman Networks...
and the Church of Scientology
Church of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is an organization devoted to the practice and the promotion of the Scientology belief system. The Church of Scientology International is the Church of Scientology's parent organization, and is responsible for the overall ecclesiastical management, dissemination and...
have used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
to demand that Google remove references to allegedly copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
ed material on their sites. While Google potentially faces lawsuits when not removing such links, critics argue that Google has an obligation to direct users to intended content and not censor results based on copyright.
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
has complained that the caching
Web cache
A web cache is a mechanism for the temporary storage of web documents, such as HTML pages and images, to reduce bandwidth usage, server load, and perceived lag...
of their content during a web crawl, a feature utilized by search engines including Google Web Search, violates copyright
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
. Google observes Internet standard mechanisms for requesting that caching be disabled via the robots.txt file, which is another mechanism that allows operators of a website to request that part or all of their site not be included in search engine results, or via META tags, which allow a content editor to specify whether a document can be crawled or archived, or whether the links on the document can be followed. The U.S. District Court of Nevada ruled that Google's caches do not constitute copyright infringement under American law
United States copyright law
The copyright law of the United States governs the legally enforceable rights of creative and artistic works under the laws of the United States.Copyright law in the United States is part of federal law, and is authorized by the U.S. Constitution...
in Field v. Google
Field v. Google
Field v. Google, Inc., 412 F.Supp. 2d 1106 is a case where Google Inc. successfully defended a lawsuit for copyright infringement. Field argued that Google infringed his exclusive right to reproduce his copyrighted works when it "cached" his website and made a copy of it available on its search...
and Parker v. Google.
Privacy
After privacy concerns were raised, Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, declared in December 2009: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines—including Google—do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."Privacy International
Privacy International
Privacy International is a UK-based non-profit organisation formed in 1990, "as a watchdog on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations." PI has organised campaigns and initiatives in more than fifty countries and is based in London, UK.-Formation, background and...
has raised concerns regarding the dangers and privacy implications of having a centrally-located, widely popular data warehouse of millions of Internet users' searches, and how under controversial existing U.S. law, Google can be forced to hand over all such information to the U.S. government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
. In its 2007 Consultation Report, Privacy International ranked Google as "Hostile to Privacy", its lowest rating on their report, making Google the only company in the list to receive that ranking.
Cookies
Google, like most search engines, places a cookieHTTP cookie
A cookie, also known as an HTTP cookie, web cookie, or browser cookie, is used for an origin website to send state information to a user's browser and for the browser to return the state information to the origin site...
, which can be used to track a person's search history, on each registered user's computer. Google uses the cookies to maintain user preferences between sessions and offer other search features. Originally the cookie did not expire until 2038, although it could be manually deleted by the user or refused by setting a browser preference. As of 2007, Google's cookie expired in two years, but renewed itself whenever a Google service is used. And more recently Google anonymizes its IP data after 9 months and its cookies after 18 months.
Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's Bing uses cookies which expire after 18 months. Yahoo! Search
Yahoo! Search
Yahoo! Search is a web search engine, owned by Yahoo! Inc. and was , the 2nd largest search engine on the web by query volume, at 6.42%, after its competitor Google at 85.35% and before Baidu at 3.67%, according to Net Applications....
had been holding most data for 90 days, but changed to an 18 month retention period in mid-2011. An alternative, Scroogle Scraper, uses Google search, but does not store cookies on users' computers.
There is no evidence that Google shares this information with law enforcement or other government agencies, though some users remain anxious about the possibility. And newspaper articles about the October 2011 Quebec murder trial of Mohammad Shafia, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, and their son, Hamed, 21 report that records of "google inquiries" on Mr. Shafia’s home computer were entered as evidence in the trial.
Gmail
- Main articles: GmailGmailGmail is a free, advertising-supported email service provided by Google. Users may access Gmail as secure webmail, as well via POP3 or IMAP protocols. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though...
and Criticism of Gmail
Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer
Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer is an American business magnate. He is the chief executive officer of Microsoft, having held that post since January 2000. , his personal wealth is estimated at US$13.9 billion, ranking number 19 on the Forbes 400.-Early life:Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan to...
(Microsoft's CEO), Liz Figueroa
Liz Figueroa
Liz Figueroa is a Democratic politician. She served as a California State Senator, representing the 10th District.She ran for California Lieutenant Governor in the June 6, 2006 primary election, against fellow state senator Jackie Speier and Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi. Figueroa received...
, Mark Rasch
Mark Rasch
Mark D. Rasch is an attorney and author, working in the areas of corporate and government cybersecurity, privacy and incident response. He is currently the director of Cybersecurity and Privacy Consulting for CSC. From 1983-1992, Rasch worked at the U.S. Department of Justice where he created the...
, and the editors of Google Watch believe the processing of email message content by Google's Gmail
Gmail
Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service provided by Google. Users may access Gmail as secure webmail, as well via POP3 or IMAP protocols. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though...
service goes beyond proper use. Google Inc. claims that mail sent to or from Gmail is never read by a human being other than the account holder, and content that is read by computers is only used to improve the relevance of advertisements.
The privacy policies of other popular email services, like Hotmail
Hotmail
Windows Live Hotmail, formerly known as MSN Hotmail and commonly referred to simply as Hotmail, is a free web-based email service operated by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live group. It was founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith and launched in July 1996 as "HoTMaiL". It was one of the first...
and Yahoo, allow users' personal information to be collected and utilized for advertising purposes.
Possible ties to the CIA and NSA
There have been allegations about connections between Google and the U.S. National Security AgencyNational Security Agency
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...
(NSA) and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
(CIA), going as far as saying that Facebook and Google are CIA fronts. U.S. intelligence agencies are reported to use Google software to support their work.
In February 2010 Google was reported to be working on an agreement with the NSA to investigate recent attacks against its network. And, while the deal did not give NSA access to Google's data on users’ searches or e-mail communications and accounts and Google was not sharing proprietary data with the agency, privacy and civil rights advocates were concerned.
In October 2004 Google acquired Keyhole
Keyhole, Inc
Keyhole, Inc., founded in 2001, was a pioneering software development company specializing in geospatial data visualization applications and was acquired by Google in 2004...
, a 3D mapping company. In February 2004, before its acquisition by Google, Keyhole received an investment from In-Q-Tel
In-Q-Tel
In-Q-Tel of Arlington, Virginia, United States is a not-for-profit venture capital firm that invests in high-tech companies for the sole purpose of keeping the Central Intelligence Agency equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability...
, the CIA's investment arm. And in July 2010 it was reported that the investment arms of both the CIA (In-Q-Tel) and Google (Google Ventures
Google Ventures
Google Ventures is the venture capital investment arm of Google Inc. that makes financially driven investments in technology companies. Google Ventures seeks to invest in start-up companies in a variety of fields ranging from Internet, software, and hardware to clean-tech, bio-tech, and health...
) were investing in Recorded Future
Recorded Future
Recorded Future Inc. is a software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, specializing in web intelligence and predictive analytics...
, a company specializing in predictive analytics
Predictive analytics
Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of statistical techniques from modeling, machine learning, data mining and game theory that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future events....
—monitoring the web in real time and using that information to predict the future. And, while private corporations have been using similar systems since the 1990s, the involvement of Google and the CIA with their large data stores raises privacy concerns.
Government requests
Google has been criticized for both disclosing too much information to governments too quickly and for not disclosing information that governments need to enforce their laws. In April 2010, Google, for the first time, released details about how often countries around the world ask it to hand over user data or to censor information. Online tools make the updated data available to everyone.For the period between July and December 2009 Brazil topped the list for user data requests with 3,663, while the US made 3,580, the UK 1,166, and India 1,061. Brazil also made the largest number of requests to remove content with 291, followed by Germany with 188, India with 142, and the US with 123. Google, who stopped offering search services in China a month before the data was released, said it could not release information on requests from the Chinese government because such information is regarded as a state secret.
Google's chief legal officer said, "The vast majority of these requests are valid and the information needed is for legitimate criminal investigations or for the removal of child pornography".
Street View
Google's online map service, "Street View"Google Street View
Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from various positions along many streets in the world...
has been accused of taking pictures and viewing too far into people's private homes and/or too close to people on the street when they do not know they are being photographed.
Surveillance of WiFi networks
As it set out to photograph neighborhoods around the world as part of its Street View program, Google equipped its vehicles with antenna as well as cameras so it could create a database with the names of Wi-Fi networks and the coding of Wi-Fi routers. Google collected about 600 gigabyteGigabyte
The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...
s of data from users of public WiFi
WIFI
WIFI is a radio station broadcasting a brokered format. Licensed to Florence, New Jersey, USA, the station is currently operated by Florence Broadcasting Partners, LLC.This station was previously owned by Real Life Broadcasting...
stations (which are not owned by Google) during 2006–2010, including snippets of private data such as e-mail. No disclosures or privacy policy
Privacy policy
Privacy policy is a statement or a legal document that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses and manages a customer or client's data...
was given to those affected or to the owners of the WiFi stations, in more than 30 countries.
Google apologized, said they were "acutely aware that we failed badly here" in terms of privacy protection, that they were not aware of the problem until an inquiry from German regulators was received, that the private data was collected inadvertently, and that none of the private data was used in Google's search engine or other services. A representative of Consumer Watchdog
Consumer Watchdog
Consumer Watchdog is a division of Business & Enterprise Solutions Botswana Ltd, a privately owned company registered in Botswana and based in Gaborone....
replied, "Once again, Google has demonstrated a lack of concern for privacy. Its computer engineers run amok, push the envelope and gather whatever data they can until their fingers are caught in the cookie jar." In a sign that legal penalties may result, Google said it will not destroy the data until permitted by regulators.
Google Buzz
On February 9, 2010 Google launched Google BuzzGoogle Buzz
Google Buzz is a social networking, microblogging and messaging tool from Google integrated into the company's web-based email program, Gmail. Users can share links, photos, videos, status messages and comments organized in "conversations" and visible in the user's inbox. On October 14, 2011,...
, Google's microblogging service. Anyone with a Gmail account is automatically added as a contact to pre-existing Gmail contacts, and must opt-out if they do not wish to participate.
The launch of Google Buzz as an "opt-out" social network immediately drew criticism for violating user privacy because it automatically allowed Gmail users' contacts to view their other contacts.
Google+ and Nymwars
Google+ requires users to identify themselves using their real names and accounts may be suspended when this requirement is not met. Critics point out that pseudonymous speech has played a critical role throughout history and feel that the Google+ policy deprives some people of an important privacy protection tool.On October 19, at the Web 2.0 Summit, Google executive Vic Gundotra
Vic Gundotra
Vivek "Vic" Gundotra , is Senior Vice-President of Social Business for Google and was previously a general manager at Microsoft.-Career:Gundotra joined Microsoft in 1991 and eventually became General Manager of Platform Evangelism...
revealed that Google+ will begin supporting pseudonyms and other types of identity within a few months.
YouTube and Viacom
On July 14, 2008, ViacomViacom
Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...
compromise
Compromise
To compromise is to make a deal where one person gives up part of his or her demand.In arguments, compromise is a concept of finding agreement through communication, through a mutual acceptance of terms—often involving variations from an original goal or desire.Extremism is often considered as...
d to protect YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
users' personal data in their $1 billion copyright lawsuit. Google agreed it will anonymize user information and internet protocol addresses from its YouTube subsidiary before handing the data over to Viacom. The privacy deal also applied to other litigants including the FA Premier League
FA Premier League
The Premier League is an English professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the English football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with The Football League. The Premier...
, the Rodgers & Hammerstein organization and the Scottish Premier League
Scottish Premier League
The Scottish Premier League , also known as the SPL , is a professional league competition for association football clubs in Scotland...
. The deal however did not extend the anonymity to employees, because Viacom wishes to prove that Google staff are aware of the uploading of illegal material to the site. The parties therefore will further meet on the matter lest the data be made available to the court.
European Union
European UnionEuropean Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
(EU) data protection officials (the Article 29
Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of personal data
The Data Protection Directive is a European Union directive which regulates the processing of personal data within the European Union...
working party who advise the EU on privacy policy) have written to Google asking the company to justify its policy of keeping information on individuals' internet searches for up to two years. The letter questioned whether Google has "fulfilled all the necessary requirements" on the EU laws concerning data protection. The probe by the EU into the data protection issue, is continuing. On June 1 Google agreed that its privacy policy is vague, and that they are constantly working at making it clearer to users. The resulting modifications to its privacy policies have been met with praise.
Czech Republic
Starting in 2010, after more than 5 months of unsuccessful negotiations with Google the Czech Office for Personal Data Protection has prevented Street View from taking pictures of new locations. The Office described Google’s program as taking pictures “beyond the extent of the ordinary sight from a street”, and claimed that it “disproportionately invaded citizens’ privacy.”Germany
In May 2010 Google was unable to meet a deadline set by Hamburg's data protection supervisor to hand over data illegally collected from unsecured home wireless networks. Google added, “We hope, given more time, to be able to resolve this difficult issue." The data was turned over to German, French, and Spanish authorities in early June 2010.In November 2010, vandals in Germany targeted houses that had opted out of Google's Street View.
In April 2011 Google announced that it will not expand its Street View program in Germany, but what has already been shot–around 20 cities' worth of pictures–will remain available. This decision came in spite of an earlier Berlin State Supreme Court ruling that Google's Street View program was legal.
Guernsey
In September 2010 Google’s Street View cars on GuernseyGuernsey
Guernsey, officially the Bailiwick of Guernsey is a British Crown dependency in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy.The Bailiwick, as a governing entity, embraces not only all 10 parishes on the Island of Guernsey, but also the islands of Herm, Jethou, Burhou, and Lihou and their islet...
in the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
were vandalized.
Italy
Google-Vividown: in February 2010, three Google executives were handed six-month suspended sentences for breach of the Italian Personal Data Protection Code.Norway
The Data Inspectorate of Norway (Norway is not a member of the EU) has investigated Google (and others) and has stated that the 18- to 24-month period for retaining data proposed by Google was too long.United States
In early 2005, the United States Department of JusticeUnited States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
filed a motion in federal court to force Google to comply with a subpoena
Subpoena
A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...
for, "the text of each search string entered onto Google's search engine over a two-month period (absent any information identifying the person who entered such query)." Google fought the subpoena, due to concerns about users' privacy. In March 2006, the court ruled partially in Google's favor, recognizing the privacy implications of turning over search terms and refusing to grant access.
In April 2008 a Pittsburgh couple, Aaron and Christine Boring, sued Google for "invasion of privacy". They claimed that Street View made a photo of their home available online, and it diminished the value of their house, which was purchased for its privacy. They lost their case in a Pennsylvania court. "While it is easy to imagine that many whose property appears on Google's virtual maps resent the privacy implications, it is hard to believe that any – other than the most exquisitely sensitive – would suffer shame or humiliation," Judge Hay ruled; the Boring family was paid one dollar by Google for the incident.
In May 2010 a U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon ordered Google to hand over two copies of wireless data that the company's Street View
Google Street View
Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from various positions along many streets in the world...
program collected as it photographed neighborhoods.
Censorship
Google has been criticized for various instances of censoringCensorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
its search results, many times in compliance with the laws of various countries, most notably in China
Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China
Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China is conducted under a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations. There are no specific laws or regulations which the censorship follows...
.
Web search
In the United States, Google commonly censors search results to comply with Digital Millennium Copyright ActDigital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
-related legal complaints, such as in 2002 when Google censored websites that provided information critical of Scientology
Scientology
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...
. Furthermore, in February 2003, Google stopped showing the advertisements of Oceana
Oceana (non-profit group)
Oceana is the largest international ocean conservation and advocacy organization. Oceana works to protect and restore the world’s oceans through targeted policy campaigns....
, a non-profit organization protesting a major cruise ship operation's sewage treatment practices. Google cited its editorial policy at the time, stating "Google does not accept advertising if the ad or site advocates against other individuals, groups, or organizations." The policy was later changed.
In the United Kingdom, it was reported that Google had 'delisted' Inquisition 21st Century, a website which claims to challenge moral authoritarian and sexually absolutist ideas in the United Kingdom. Google later released a press statement suggesting Inquisition 21 had attempted to manipulate search results. In addition, in April 2008, Google refused to run ads for a UK Christian group opposed to abortion, explaining that "At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain 'abortion and religion-related content.'" In Germany and France, a study reported that approximately 113 White Nationalist
White nationalism
White nationalism is a political ideology which advocates a racial definition of national identity for white people. White separatism and white supremacism are subgroups within white nationalism. The former seek a separate white nation state, while the latter add ideas from social Darwinism and...
, Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, anti-semitic, radical Islamic and other websites had been removed from the German and French versions of Google. Google has complied with these laws by not including sites containing such material in its search results. However, Google does list the number of excluded results at the bottom of the search result page and links to Chilling Effects for explanation.
As of January 26, 2011, Google's Auto Complete feature will not complete certain words such as "bittorrent", "torrent", "utorrent" and "rapidshare" In addition, swears and pornographic words are not completed. However, they are not censored from actual search results.
China
Until March 2010, Google adhered to the Internet censorship policies of ChinaInternet censorship in the People's Republic of China
Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China is conducted under a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations. There are no specific laws or regulations which the censorship follows...
, enforced by filters colloquially known as "The Great Firewall of China". Google.cn search results were filtered so as not to bring up any results concerning the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
, sites supporting the independence movements of Tibet and Taiwan
Taiwan independence
Taiwan independence is a political movement whose goals are primarily to formally establish the Republic of Taiwan by renaming or replacing the Republic of China , form a Taiwanese national identity, reject unification and One country, two systems with the People's Republic of China and a Chinese...
, the Falun Gong
Falun Gong
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline first introduced in China in 1992 by its founder, Li Hongzhi, through public lectures. It combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with the moral philosophy...
movement, and other information perceived to be harmful to the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
(PRC). Google claimed that some censorship is necessary in order to keep the Chinese government from blocking Google entirely, as occurred in 2002. The company claims it did not plan to give the government information about users who search for blocked content, and will inform users that content has been restricted if they attempt to search for it. As of 2009, Google was the only major China-based search engine to explicitly inform the user when search results are blocked or hidden.
Some Chinese Internet users were critical of Google for assisting the Chinese government in repressing its own citizens, particularly those dissenting against the government and advocating for human rights. Furthermore, Google had been denounced and called hypocritical by Free Media Movement
Free Media Movement
The Free Media Movement is media freedom watchdog organization of Journalists from Sri Lanka.It evolved out of the standing committee of journalists, which was formed in late 1991. The standing committee was formed by a group of journalists and media personnel as a reaction to the then government...
for agreeing to China's demands while simultaneously fighting the United States government's requests for similar information. Google China had also been condemned by Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...
, Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
and Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
.
In 2009, China Central Television
China Central Television
China Central Television or Chinese Central Television, commonly abbreviated as CCTV, is the major state television broadcaster in mainland China. CCTV has a network of 19 channels broadcasting different programmes and is accessible to more than one billion viewers...
, Xinhua News Agency
Xinhua News Agency
The Xinhua News Agency is the official press agency of the government of the People's Republic of China and the biggest center for collecting information and press conferences in the PRC. It is the largest news agency in the PRC, ahead of the China News Service...
, People's Daily
People's Daily
The People's Daily is a daily newspaper in the People's Republic of China. The paper is an organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China , published worldwide with a circulation of 3 to 4 million. In addition to its main Chinese-language edition, it has editions in English,...
reported Google's "dissemination of obscene information", People's Daily claimed that "Google's 'don't be evil' motto becomes a fig leaf". Chinese government imposed administrative penalties to Google China, and demanded for a reinforcement of the censorship.
However, on January 12, 2010, in response to an apparent hacking of Google's servers in an attempt to access information about Chinese dissidents, Google announced that “we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.” On March 22, 2010, after talks with Chinese authorities failed to reach an agreement, the company redirected its censor-complying Google China
Google China
Google China is a subsidiary of Google, Inc., the world's largest Internet search engine company. Google China ranks as the number 2 search engine in the People's Republic of China, after Baidu...
service to its Google Hong Kong service, which is outside the jurisdiction of Chinese censorship laws. However, at least as of March 23, 2010, "The Great Firewall" continues to censor search results from the Hong Kong portal, www.google.com.hk (as it does with the US portal, www.google.com) for controversial terms such as "Falun gong" and "the June 4 incident" (Tiananmen Square incident).
AdSense/AdWords
In August 2008, Google closed the AdSense account of a site that carried a negative view of ScientologyScientology
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...
, the second closing of such a site within 3 months. It is not certain if the account revocations actually were on the grounds of anti-religious content, however the cases have raised questions about Google's terms in regards to AdSense/AdWords. The Adsense policy defines that "Sites displaying Google ads may not include [...] advocacy against any individual, group, or organization", which allows Google to revoke the above mentioned AdSense accounts.
In May 2011, Google cancelled the AdWord advertisement purchased by a Dublin sex worker rights group named "Turn Off the Blue Light" (TOBL), claiming that it represented an "egregious violation" of company ad policy by "selling adult sexual services". However, TOBL is a nonprofit campaign for sex worker rights and is not advertising or selling adult sexual services. In July, after TOBL members held a protest outside Google's European headquarters in Dublin and wrote to complain, Google relented, reviewed the group's website, found its content to be advocating a political position, and restored the AdWord advertisement.
YouTube
YouTube is a video sharingVideo hosting service
A video hosting service allows individuals to upload video clips to an Internet website. The video host will then store the video on its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view this video...
website acquired by Google Inc in 2006. YouTube's Terms of Service
Terms of Service
Terms of service are rules which one must agree to abide by in order to use a service. Unless in violation of consumer protection laws, such terms are usually legally binding...
prohibits the posting of videos which violate copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
s or depict pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
, illegal acts, gratuitous violence, or hate speech
Hate speech
Hate speech is, outside the law, any communication that disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic....
. User-posted videos that violate such terms may be removed and replaced with a message stating: "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation".
YouTube has been criticized by national governments for failing to police content. In 2006, Thailand blocked access to YouTube for users with Thai IP addresses. Thai authorities identified 20 offensive videos and demanded that YouTube remove them before it would unblock any YouTube content. In 2007 a Turkish judge ordered access to YouTube blocked because of content that insulted Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was an Ottoman and Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, writer, and the first President of Turkey. He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey....
, a crime under Turkish law. On February 22, 2008, Pakistan Telecommunications attempted to block regional access to YouTube following a government order. The attempt subsequently caused a worldwide YouTube blackout that took 2 hours to correct. Four days later, Pakistan Telecom lifted the ban after YouTube removed controversial religious comments made by a Dutch government official concerning Islam.
YouTube has also been criticized by its users for attempting to censor content. In November 2007, the account of Wael Abbas, a well known Egyptian activist who posted videos of police brutality, voting irregularities and anti-government demonstrations, was blocked for three days.
In February 2008, a video produced by the American Life League
American Life League
The American Life League is one of the largest pro-life organizations in the United States. The organization opposes abortion under any circumstance, contraception, embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia...
that accused a Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Federation of America , commonly shortened to Planned Parenthood, is the U.S. affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and one of its larger members. PPFA is a non-profit organization providing reproductive health and maternal and child health services. The...
television commercial of promoting recreational sex was removed, then reinstated two days later. In October, a video by stand-up comic Pat Condell
Pat Condell
Patrick Condell is an Irish-English writer, political commentator, comedian, UKIP patron and atheist internet personality. He performed alternative comedy shows during the 1980s and 1990s in the United Kingdom, and won a Time Out Comedy Award in 1991...
criticizing the British government for officially sanctioning sharia law courts in Britain was removed, then reinstated two days later. In response, his fans uploaded copies of the video themselves, and the National Secular Society
National Secular Society
The National Secular Society is a British campaigning organisation that promotes secularism and the separation of church and state. It holds that no-one should gain advantage or disadvantage because of their religion or lack of religion. It was founded by Charles Bradlaugh in 1866...
wrote to YouTube in protest.
YouTube also pulled a video of columnist Michelle Malkin showing violence by Muslim extremists. Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, commented that while, in his opinion, Michelle Malkin disseminates bigotry in her blog, "that does not mean that this particular video is bigoted; it's not. But because it's by Malkin, it's a target."
Monopoly, restraint of trade, and antitrust
According to Joe Wilcox of Microsoft-Watch Google has increased its dominance of search, becoming an information gatekeeper despite the conflict of interest between information gathering and the advertising surrounding that information. His colleagues do not share the same view.In the case of the now-defunct Google-Yahoo! deal of 2008 — a pact for Google to sell advertising on Yahoo! search pages — the U.S. Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
found that the deal would be "materially reducing important competitive rivalry between the two companies" and would violate the Sherman Antitrust Act
Sherman Antitrust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act requires the United States federal government to investigate and pursue trusts, companies, and organizations suspected of violating the Act. It was the first Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust litigation by...
.
Alternatives to Google and monopoly power
In testimony before a U.S. Senate antitrustAntitrust
The United States antitrust law is a body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior and unfair business practices. Antitrust laws are intended to encourage competition in the marketplace. These competition laws make illegal certain practices deemed to hurt businesses or consumers or both,...
panel in September 2011, Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman, said that “the Internet is the ultimate level playing field" where users were "one click away" from competitors. Beyond the existence of alternatives, Google's large market share was another aspect of the debate, as this exchange between Senator Herb Kohl
Herb Kohl
Herbert H. "Herb" Kohl is the senior U.S. Senator from Wisconsin and a member of the Democratic Party. He is also a philanthropist and the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks National Basketball Association team...
and Mr. Schmidt at the September Senate hearing illustrates:
- Senator Kohl asked: "But you do recognize that in the words that are used and antitrust kind of oversight, your market share constitutes monopoly, dominant -- special power dominant for a monopoly firm. You recognize you're in that area?"
- Mr. Schmidt replied: "I would agree, sir, that we’re in that area.... I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding of monopoly findings is this is a judicial process."
Being a monopoly or having monopoly power isn't illegal in the United States. It depends on whether that power is used in ways that violate the special rules that apply to monopolies.
Energy consumption
Google has been criticized for the high amount of energy used to maintain its servers. Google has pledged to spend millions of dollars to investigate cheap, clean, renewable energyRenewable energy
Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...
, and has installed solar panels on the roofs at its Mountain View
Mountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
facilities. In 2010, Google also invested $39 million in wind power.
Doodles
Google was criticized by U.S conservatives in 2007 for not featuring versions of the Google logoGoogle logo
Google has had several logos since its renaming from BackRub. The current official Google logo was designed by Ruth Kedar, and is a wordmark based on the Catull typeface....
(known as "Doodles") for American patriotic
Patriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...
holidays such as Memorial Day
Memorial Day
Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War...
and Veterans Day
Veterans Day
Veterans Day, formerly Armistice Day, is an annual United States holiday honoring military veterans. It is a federal holiday that is observed on November 11. It coincides with other holidays such as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, which are celebrated in other parts of the world and also mark...
. That year, Google featured a logo commemorating Veterans Day
Veterans Day
Veterans Day, formerly Armistice Day, is an annual United States holiday honoring military veterans. It is a federal holiday that is observed on November 11. It coincides with other holidays such as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, which are celebrated in other parts of the world and also mark...
.
Google Video
On August 15, 2007 Google discontinued its Download-to-own/Download-to-rent (DTO/DTR) program. Some videos previously purchased for ownership under that program were no longer viewable when the embedded Digital Rights ManagementDigital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
(DRM) licenses were revoked. Google gave refunds for the full amount spent on videos using "gift certificates" (or "bonuses") to their customers' "Google Checkout Account". After a public uproar, Google issued full refunds to the credit cards of the Google Video users without revoking the gift certificates.
Search within search
For some search results, Google provides a secondary search box that can be used to search within a website identified from the first search. Although this is an innovative search tool for users, it sparked controversy among some online publishers and retailers. When performing a second search within a specific website, advertisements from competing and rival companies often showed up together with the results from the website being searched. This has the potential to draw users away from the website they were originally searching. "While the service could help increase traffic, some users could be siphoned away as Google uses the prominence of the brands to sell ads, typically to competing companies." In order to combat this controversy, Google has offered to turn off this feature for companies who request to have it removed.According to software engineer Ben Lee and Product Manager Jack Menzel, the idea for search within search originated from the way users were searching. It appeared that users were often not finding exactly what they needed while trying to explore within a company site. "Teleporting" on the web, where users need only type part of the name of a website into Google (no need to remember the entire URL) in order to find the correct site, is what helps Google users complete their search. Google took this concept a step further and instead of just "teleporting", users could type in keywords to search within the website of their choice.
Naming of Go programming language
Google is criticized for naming their programming language "GoGo (programming language)
Go is a compiled, garbage-collected, concurrent programming language developed by Google Inc.The initial design of Go was started in September 2007 by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson. Go was officially announced in November 2009. In May 2010, Rob Pike publicly stated that Go was being...
" while there is already an existing programming language called "Go!
Go! (programming language)
Go! is an agent-based programming language in the tradition of logic-based programming languages like Prolog. It was introduced in a 2003 paper by Francis McCabe and Keith Clark....
".
Potential security threats
Google has been criticised for providing information that could potentially be useful to terrorists. In the UK during March 2010, Liberal DemocratsLiberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...
MP Paul Keetch
Paul Keetch
Paul Stuart Keetch is an English Liberal Democrat politician who served as the Member of Parliament for Hereford from 1997 to 2010.-Early life:...
and unnamed military officers criticised Google for including pictures of the outside of the headquarters of the SAS
Special Air Service
Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...
at RAF Base Hereford
RAF Hereford
RAF Hereford was a non-flying station of the Royal Air Force. It was the home of a wide variety of training schools from 1940 until it closed for RAF training in 1999. It was also known as RAF Credenhill, as it is situated in Credenhill, north-west of Hereford...
, stating that terrorists might use this information to plan attacks, rather than having to drive past it themselves. Google responded that there was no appreciable security risk and that it had no intention of removing the pictures.
On Google Maps, street view and 360 degree images of military bases were removed at the Pentagon's request.
Tax avoidance
Google has been criticized for using legal, but aggressive tax avoidance strategies to minimize its corporate tax bill. Google cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the period of 2007 to 2009 using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and The Netherlands to Bermuda. Google’s income shifting — involving strategies known to lawyers as the “Double IrishDouble Irish Arrangement
The Double Irish Arrangement is a tax avoidance strategy that U.S. based multinational corporations use to lower their income tax liability. The idea is to use payments between related entities in a corporate structure to shift income from a higher-tax country to a lower-tax country. It relies on...
” and the “Dutch Sandwich” – helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.
External links
- "Privacy Group Flunks Google", Lisa Vaas, eWeek.com, 12 June 2007
- "Who's afraid of Google?", The Economist, 30 August 2007
- "10 reasons to turn Google Buzz off", Mushon Zer-Aviv, Mushon.com, 17 February 2010
- "Googlist Realism: The Google-China saga and the free-information regimes as a new site of cultural imperialism and moral tensions", Tricia Wang, Cultural Bytes, 29 June 2010
- "The Evil Side of Google", in 5 parts, Chelu.eu, 12-17 December 2010Google Watch, a website by Daniel Brandt critical of Google
- Google Watch Watch, a website by Chris Beasley critical of Daniel Brandt's Google Watch website