[ny times] Consumer Watchdog, a consumer group, has long been critical of Google and some of the comments that Eric Schmidt, the company’s chief executive, has made about privacy online.
On Thursday, the group took its objections to a new level with a 540-square-foot video advertisement in Times Square in New York that shows Mr. Schmidt as an unctuous ice cream truck driver who knows everything about everyone and happily offers free ice cream in exchange for full body scans. (The video is available on YouTube, which is owned by Google.)
A Google spokesperson said in an e-mail, “We like ice cream as much as anyone, but we like privacy even more. That’s why we provide tools for users to control their privacy online, like Google Dashboard, Ads Preference Manager, Chrome incognito mode and ‘off the record’ Gmail chat. You can check out these tools at google.com/privacy”
In the past, Mr. Schmidt has defended how the company views private information by saying “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
The group says its goal with the videos and an accompanying Web site, InsideGoogle.com, is to push Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to create a Do Not Track Me list, similar to the Do Not Call list developed to prevent telemarketers from aggressively calling consumers.
Consumer Watchdog Group Goes After Google
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