by Schlossy

Created on: September 29, 2007

Google's application called Google Maps Street View that displays actual images of street locations. To think that Google's new application is watching your every move is pretty creepy. Google Maps Street View has been tested by numerous people since its inception. Many of these people have used this application to see what takes place once they leave their homes. Street View has been used for more than monitoring homes. A company in San Francisco caught several of its employees leaving the office too soon for an early lunch break using Google Maps Street View.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Google ranks as one of the worst in securing privacy for their users. London-based Privacy International, who gave Google the lowest grade for privacy, reserved this category for companies with companies with "comprehensive consumer surveillance and entrenched hostility to privacy." The backlash against Google's privacy policies appears to be growing.

Google has found ways to get itself into plenty of legal issues. Though Google claims that they abide by all laws set forth by the government, Google finds ways to generate applications such as Google Maps Street View that tinker with privacy laws ever so slightly. Google obviously won't say they're wrong for developing the application, but they should recognize the pros and cons of developing this revolutionizing software since it may not be used just for finding directions.

With the FTC announcing last month that hearings on behavioral advertising will take place in Washington D.C. on November 1st and 2nd, I thought it may be a good opportunity to revisit the Google DoubleClick deal that shook the online advertising world and had people up in arms a few months ago. Why would regulators and privacy advocates be so concerned with this acquisition? First, a little background is in order. Google has dominated search marketing with their AdWords and AdSense program for years, and is what has made Google so profitable as well, accounting for 99% of their revenue as a total.

Since AdWords inception, Google has been able to track what users were clicking on and reporting this information back to paying advertisers to enhance their search campaigns. In addition to tracking paid search results, for almost two years Google has been tracking what users search for in their "organic" or natural search results in order to establish a profile of their users.

I don't know which way the FTC will go on this issue, but I do know that Google, DoubleClick and the online advertising industry as a whole will be very closely be watching the FTC hearings Nov 1st-2nd.

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