The Federal Trade Commission is reported to have recently completed an investigation into whether Google intentionally ranks its own services higher than its competitors’ in its search results, and a majority of FTC commissioners support legal action alleging Google has violated antitrust law. Since President Obama has won re-election, the FTC may now have more leverage against Google to settle the matter. It is too soon to speculate whether the investigation will lead to a consent decree or a lawsuit. However, since FTC Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz may leave his position at the end of the year a negotiated settlement may occur in the coming weeks.
During the past year and a half, Google has confronted multiple regulatory and legal challenges. Last year, Google agreed to pay a $500 million fine to avoid criminal charges and to settle allegations that it knowingly allowed illegal pharmacy advertisements on its website. Earlier this year, Google was caught violating a consent decree it signed with the FTC that bars it from future privacy misrepresentations. Google was fined a record $22.5 million because it bypassed the privacy settings of Apple’s Safari internet browser without users’ consent.
On March 1 of this year, Google changed its privacy policies and terms of services to consolidate more than 60 separate privacy policies and replaced them with one uniform policy. These changes allow Google to pool information from its users’ YouTube, Google+, Gmail, Blogger, etc. accounts to enable it to better serve advertising. Last month, the European Union Data Protection Agency issued a report alleging that Google’s new policy failed to comply with its data protection rules. This report was endorsed by privacy regulators in 27 E.U. member states along with Australia, Mexico, New Zealand and Canada.
Google is not alone in trying to create policies that will enable it to collect and analyze data to better serve targeted advertising. Soon after the E.U.’s “recommendations” to Google were released, Microsoft updated its privacy policies to allow it to more easily share customer data between some of its services.
While Microsoft has publicly promised that it will not utilize some customer data to behavioral advertise, its privacy policy changes may enable it to do so in some of its consumer products. However, Microsoft has stated that its recent changes to its privacy policies will only affect its free web-based products and not the software that individuals, businesses, or schools purchase.
Google and Microsoft offer schools educational productivity suites for free. These programs may have been created with the hope that once a student graduates he will continue to utilize these tools in his personal and corporate endeavors. Free educational software is a win-win-win situation for all since schools obtain much-needed digital tools at no cost, students learn how to use services that they may need after they graduate, and Google or Microsoft may obtain a customer for life.
On the surface, this appears to benefit all parties involved. While Microsoft Office 365 for education agreements with schools do not appear to allow it to utilize a student’s class assignments, school projects, or student-teacher interactions to behavioral advertise, Google’s Apps for Education Program specifically grants schools the ability to activate this feature.
Why does Google provide this option in its agreements with educational institutions? If students continue to utilize e-mail addresses or other Google Apps for Education accounts after graduating it appears that under Google’s standard agreement with schools it will be able to data mine student e-mails, class assignments, school projects, and digital student-teacher interactions to behavioral advertise when students become alumni. Google’s Apps for Education Program may create Family Educational Privacy Rights Act (FERPA) and/or Federal Trade Commission problems for Google and/or schools that utilize Google’s educational services.
Google’s Apps for Education agreements with schools appear to raise significant regulatory, legal, and privacy concerns that need to be remedied to lessen the likelihood of further government investigations and regulations. With a democratic administration and senate majority, Silicon Valley must become more proactive in working with regulators and lawmakers to resolve privacy concerns or increased regulation may be on the horizon. The bottom line is that Internet companies must fully understand the issues that may be triggered by their technology.
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The FTC is said to have recently completed an investigation into whether Google intentionally ranks its own services higher than its competitors in its search results, and a majority of FTC commissioners support legal action alleging Google has violated antitrust law, writes digital privacy rights advocate and lawyer Bradley Shear.
During the past year and a half, Google has confronted multiple regulatory and legal challenges. And Google is not alone. But Google's Apps for Education agreements with schools appear to raise significant regulatory, legal, and privacy concerns that need to be remedied to lessen the likelihood of further government investigations and regulations.
Shear argues that Silicon Valley must become more proactive in working with regulators and lawmakers to resolve privacy concerns or increased regulation may be on the horizon. The bottom line is that Internet companies must fully understand the issues that may be triggered by their technology.
Read the full post then weigh in: Will the quest the online giants' Big Data quest trigger a new wave of online regulations? Or can they find a way to tread lightly and not involve the privacy cops?
Bradley Shear is a lawyer and advocate for personal digital privacy rights. He practices internet, privacy, and advertising law and has advised state and federal lawmakers around the United States on social media privacy law and public policy.
Will Google's Policies Increase Tech Regulation?
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Will Google's Policies Increase Tech Regulation?
