Outcry Over Google's Purchase of Doubleclick

TheCybernator writes to mention that several activist groups have cried out in protest of the Google buyout of Doubleclick reported in recent news. "'Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick will give one company access to more information about the Internet activities of consumers than any other company in the world,' said the complaint lodged with the Federal Trade Commission. 'Moreover, Google will operate with virtually no legal obligation to ensure the privacy, security, and accuracy of the personal data that it collects.' The complaint was filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center along with the Center for Digital Democracy and the US Public Interest Research Group, all of which are involved in online privacy issues."

Comments

Re:I haven't been around in a while

[rtb61]

Corporations are not a living entity, they do not think, they do not do, they definitely do not believe, and they have absolutely no moral endurance. They just have the barest minimum of legal existence as means by which individuals can limit their legal and financial liabilities and sell companies for far beyond the real worth.

Largely today corporations exist to hide the complete lack of morals and deep seated greed of the corporate executives who run them (don't blame me the shareholders made me do it, uh huh), and pay enormous amounts of money in B$ PR to create marketing illusions of themselves. Some of course do behave some what better than the others, and for some delusional reason believe that they invented good business based upon honesty and integrity (I'll give you the hint, this existed for a very long time in long term small and medium businesses).

Just like any other public corporation, as the shares trade hands and new corporate executives take over (especially the completely amoral ones who can lie and deceive their way up the corporate ladder) so the nature of the corporation changes. Of course the private information that google holds will not disappear as the nature of the company changes.

As for invading any ones privacy, I did once test 'google staff' respect for privacy, they failed, the test night have been a bit over the top, but it had to be done.