Google, however, insisted that the suit was groundless, saying that “EPIC is wrong on the facts and the law.” Late yesterday afternoon, the court agreed to expedite the case, giving the FTC until February 17th to respond to the suit, and EPIC until the 21st to file their reply to the FTC.

Now it looks like Google may have been ahead of the game the entire time. Politico is reporting this afternoon that they have managed to get hold of a report Google filed with the FTC on January 26th detailing the company’s compliance with the very consent order that EPIC insists their new privacy policy violates.The report details the steps that Google has undertaken to maintain the privacy of their users and to ensure that users are properly notified of the changes to Google’s policy. The report describes an “aggressive notification process” that Google intends to use “to promote user awareness of the current terms of teh Google Privacy Policy and to present users with clear information in order to exercise meaningful choice regarding their continued use of Google services.”

The report walks through the provisions of the consent order step by step and describes the steps Google has taken to make sure that their new privacy policy complies with it. The report is dated January 26, 2012 (two days after the initial announcement), and signed by Keith Enright, Google’s Senior Privacy Council. A copy of the report can be found here.

Now, a federal judge has expedited the suit. The court has given the FTC until February 17 to file a response to EPIC’s demands, after which EPIC will have until the 21st to issue their own reply. According to a post on EPIC’s blog late yesterday, “[t]he Court’s deadlines reflect Google’s imminent, substantial changes to the company’s business practices.” EPIC accuses Google of preparing “to consolidate the personal data of Google users across 60 services,” which it claims is a violation of the earlier consent order. The original order dealt with Google’s short-lived Google Buzz social network.

Google has continued to insist that their new policy poses no threat to user privacy, and that they have worked hard throughout this process to be as transparent as possible and make sure all users are informed of the changes.

What do you think? Is EPIC overreacting? Sound off in the comments.

Not long after the earlier story ran, Google responded to my request for comment. Here’s what a Google spokesperson had to say:

We take privacy very seriously. We’re happy to engage in constructive conversations about our updated Privacy Policy but EPIC is wrong on the facts and the law.

The response is a little short on specifics – i.e., Google doesn’t explain how “EPIC is wrong on the facts and the law” – and the bullet points are similar to the one’s we’ve seen here and here, and the statement Google made here. Reading between the lines, it looks like Google thinks all the hubbub over their new privacy policy is much ado about nothing. Personally, I’m inclined to agree.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

EPIC filed their suit against the Federal Trade Commission in federal court in the District of Columbia. They filed a complaint (PDF) and a request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction (PDF) seeking to require the FTC to enforce the consent order and prevent Google from making the changes to their privacy policy.

Google’s attempt to create a simple, unified privacy policy for all their services has been met with a storm of controversy since it was announced late last month. Many expressed concerns about the impact of the new policy on their own privacy, and on Google’s access to their data. The situation drew the attention of Congress as well as the European Union, a prompted efforts by Google to set the record straight.

A request for comment from Google has not yet received a response. The new privacy policy is intended to go into effect on March 1.

In an interview with the LA Times, EPIC’s executive director Marc Rotenberg said the group may file a complaint. The group has done so in the past, with regards to Google’s inclusion of YouTube videos in search results.

EPIC has put up the following statement on its site, citing concerns over Search Plus Your World:

Google is changing the results displayed by its search engine to include data from its social network, such as photos or blog posts made by Google+ users, as well as the public Internet. Although data from a user’s Google+ contacts is not displayed publicly, Google’s changes make the personal data of users more accessible. Users can opt out of seeing personalized search results, but cannot opt out of having their information found through Google search. Also, Google’s changes come at a time when the company is facing increased scrutiny over whether it distorts search results by giving preference to its own content. Recently, the Senate held a hearing on Google’s use of its dominance in the search market to suppress competition, and EPIC urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google’s use of Youtube search rankings to give preferential treatment to its own video content over non-Google content. Google has also acknowledged that the FTC is investigating whether Google uses its dominance in the search field to inhibit competition in other areas.

There has been a lot debate around the new features, which make Google+ much more a part of Google Search. You can read more about Twitter’s public opposition to the features here. In a nutshell, Twitter thinks the changes make Twitter content less accessible to users. I don’t really see how this changes things in that regard. Twitter content has been less accessible since Twitter and Google failed to renew their realtime search/Twitter firehose deal last year (which I do also see as a negative thing).

Twitter and Facebook are both keeping Google from certain data, which Google would be able to use to improve as a search engine. Some argue, however that Google can get enough public data from Twitter and Facebook to work into the new offerings, at least to some extent. All of this is true.

On the one hand, Google could, for example recommend Twitter accounts and Facebook pages for celebrities, the way it is doing with Google+ profiles. On the other hand, Google doesn’t have the data from Twitter and Facebook to deliver the kind of personalized results it can offer via Google+. It’s easier for Google to improve the user experience, at least in theory, when they can give you any data that that is available (personalized data). Google+, which is really just an extension of the Google account itself, is Google’s way of trying to deliver this stuff, supplemented with other public data from places like Flickr, Quora, WordPress, etc.

Danny Sullivan posted this video of Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt talking about the lack of Facebook and Twitter data:

Part of Search Plus Your World is the addition of a special section for “People and Pages on Google+”. When I search for “music” I see profiles for Britney Spears, Mariah Carey and Busta Rhymes – Google profiles. Nothing but Google profiles in that section. However, the top organic result I get is for Yahoo Music. Not even Google Music.

I see the new features as more of a relevancy problem than an antitrust problem. If Google is taking what it knows about me, to personalize my search results, it should recognize that I use Google Music (I don’t use Yahoo Music), and that I don’t give a crap about Britney Spears, Mariah Carey or Busta Rhymes) – at least not as much of a crap as it would take to deem them worthy of that kind of placement for such a broad term. In fact, I would argue that my results would be much better for the user (me) if Google actually tapped its own Google Music property to understand the music I like. I don’t need Facebook pages or Twitter accounts for Britney, Mariah or Busta either.

Part of the reason I use multiple products from Google is because I expect there to be integration. It’s often disappointing when that integration is lacking. It makes things less usable. If I’m signed in to my Google account, I want easy access to content that’s related to my Google account. If I want things from Facebook or Twitter, I know where to look.

If you are signed into Google, you are signed into your Google account. You are signed into Google+. When you’re not signed in, well, that’s a different ballgame. One thing that is a bit iffy here, is that Google said in is announcement that Search Plus Your World would be for users that are signed in. The personal stuff is, but the People and Places stuff that highlights Google+ accounts still appears when the user is signed out.

That could be an issue.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC (yeah, EPIC), has sent a letter to the FTC asking that they look into Facebook’s new Timeline feature and whether or not it violates the previous privacy agreement the company reached with the FTC back in November of 2011.

In November, Facebook settled charges that it mislead consumers regarding their privacy, and failed to keep promises they made to protect that privacy. The settlement said that Facebook must be more forthright with its members and make sure that any changes that they make concerning privacy must be clearly and prominently spelled out.

This new EPIC letter to the FTC is particularly important because it was a letter from EPIC that began the FTC investigation that eventually led to the aforementioned settlement.

Having just reached a settlement with the Commission in which the company is required “to take several steps to make sure it lives up to its promise in the future, including giving consumers clear and prominent notice and obtaining consumers’ express consent before their information is shared beyond the privacy settings they have established,” Facebook is changing the privacy setting of its users in a way that gives the company far greater ability to disclose their personal information than in the past. With Timeline, Facebook has once again taken control over the user’s data from the user and has now made information that was essentially archived and inaccessible widely available without the consent of the user.

Basically, EPIC is concerned that with Timeline, Facebook simply chooses a bunch of information from your personal data and puts it out there for everyone to see. The impetus is on the user to edit their privacy settings in order to tweak their Timeline to only show stuff that they want it to show.

EPIC goes on to argue that since Timeline contains new categories like “Health and Wellness,” it is ripe to be used by companies mining for medical data. They argue that the Timeline makes it “a heck of a lot easier for computer criminals to unearth personal details that can be used to craft attacks.”

They also quote a source who thinks Facebook is out to “promote oversharing” and “abandon restraint,” which can be dangerous (no arguments here).

What do you think? Does the Facebook Timeline’s drudging of old posts and promotion of oversharing violate their privacy settlement? Should people be responsible for their own information – if you put it on Facebook, don’t expect it to be private unless you go to lengths to make it private? Let us know in the comments.

"It is clear that the single biggest change impacting the privacy of children since the adoption of COPPA has been the emergence of social network services, such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter," said Marc Rotenberg, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Executive Director.

"These web-based platforms provide new opportunities for kids to interact online and also for companies to gather up information."

EPIC also criticized the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) failure to enforce children’s privacy rights despite clear violations of federal law. Rotenberg cited EPIC’s FTC complaint against Echometrix, a company selling "parental control" software that secretly monitored children’s online activity for marketing purposes. The FTC ignored EPIC’s complaint, but the Department of Defense shut down sales of the product.

EPIC recommended updates that would expand COPPA protections to teens and clarify the law’s application to mobile and social network services.

"The emergence of social networks and the powerful commercial forces that are seeking to extract personal data on all users of these services, but particularly children, raise new challenges that the original COPPA simply did not contemplate," said Rotenberg. "Today, I recommend that Congress raise the age requirement in COPPA to 18."

The FTC’s COPPA Rule took effect in 2000. The Rule requires operators of Web sites and online services that target children under age13 to obtain verifiable parental consent before they collect, use, or disclose personal information from children. They also must give parents the opportunity to review and delete personal information their children have provided.
 

The EPIC complaint calls on the Trade Commission to require Google to make the Buzz service fully opt-in, to stop using Gmail users’ private address book contacts to gather social networking lists, and to give Google users more control over their personal data.

"This is a significant breach of consumers’ expectations of privacy," said Marc Rotenberg, EPIC, Executive Director.

"Google should not be allowed to push users’ personal information into a social network they never requested."

Google introduced Buzz on February 9, and activated it for all Gmail users. When users began viewing the service, they were automatically listed as "following" post from their most common email contacts. Participation in the service also created a profile publicly displaying the list of common contacts.

To its credit Google has made changes to Buzz twice in response to widespread criticism, but EPIC maintains privacy violations remain.

The EPIC complaint argues email providers have a responsibility to protect the personal information that users provide and Google has not fulfilled this responsibility.

Google says it is still working on Buzz to improve it based on user feedback. "We quickly realized that we didn’t get everything quite right," the company said in a blog post.

"We’re very sorry for the concern we’ve caused and have been working hard ever since to improve things based on your feedback. We’ll continue to do so."
 

The EPIC complaint wants the FTC to open an investigation into the changes made by Facebook to the privacy setting of its users and require the social network to restore privacy safeguards.

"This is the most significant case now before the Federal Trade Commission," said Marc Rotenberg, EPIC Executive Director.

"More than 100 million people in the United States subscribe to the Facebook service. The company should not be allowed to turn down the privacy dial on son many American consumers.

According to the EPIC complaint, far more user information became publicly available as a result of this change. EPIC also said that more personal information will become available to third party application developers as a result of the changes to the privacy settings.

Among the organizations supporting the EPIC complaint are the American Library Association, the Center for Digital Democracy, the Consumer Federation of America, FoolProof Financial Education, Patent Privacy Rights, Privacy Activism, the Privacy Rights now Coalition, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, and the U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation.
 

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The complaint, filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), comes after Google inadvertently disclosed consumer’s private information stored on its cloud computing service.

EPIC also asked the FTC to keep Google from offering its cloud computing services until safeguards are put in place.

Google said it had received a copy of the complaint but had not gone over the details. "We are highly aware of how important our users’ data is to them and take our responsibility very seriously," the company said.

Marc Rotenberg

On March 7, Google said a glitch in its online software, Google Docs, led to a small number of users to inadvertently share their private documents with others. The glitch has since been corrected and affected 0.05 percent of all documents. Google says the glitch was limited to users who had previously shared online documents with others.

"Given the growing dependence of US consumers, businesses, and federal agencies on cloud computing services, providers like Google must ensure the security of personal information stored on their servers," said Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director, EPIC.

"The Google Docs data breach highlights the hazards of Google’s inadequate security practices, as well as the risks of cloud computing services generally."