Privacy groups complain to FTC over Google’s 'deceptive' policy change

DATE: 20/12/2016
SOURCE: PCWORLD
VIA: REDDIT


Privacy groups have complained to the Federal Trade Commission that Google is encroaching on user privacy through a policy change in June that allows it to combine personally-identifiable information with browsing data collected by its DoubleClick digital advertising service.

The complaint by Consumer Watchdog and Privacy Rights Clearing House alleged that Google has created “super-profiles” as it can track user activity on Android mobile phones, with an 88 percent market share of smartphones worldwide, “and from any website that uses Google Analytics, hosts YouTube videos, or displays ads served by DoubleClick or AdSense.”

The combination of data is in contrast to Google’s pledges not to combine users’ personally-identifiable information with DoubleClick’s browsing data when acquiring the ad serving service in 2008, according to the complaint filed Thursday but made public on Monday. In October this year, ProPublica reported that Google “quietly erased that last privacy line in the sand” by its policy change in June that allowed the DoubleClick database of web browsing records to be combined with personal user data.

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