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With the instances of data security breaches and identity thefts over the Internet on the rise, the need for higher privacy and security standards were increasingly being felt around the world.
In September 2007, the world's leading Internet search engine, Google Inc. (Google), called on nations, governments and businesses to arrive at a global standard which would govern privacy over the Internet.
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Eric Schmidt, the chairman and CEO of Google, wrote,
"The task we now face is twofold: to build consumer trust by preventing
abuse and to create consistent, predictable rules that encourage future
innovation."1 The company said that, being a leading player in the
Internet, it was ready to take up a leadership role to address this
issue.
With this purpose Google formulated a proposal which was presented by the company's global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer (Fleischer), at a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) meeting on September 14, 2007 in Strasbourg, Germany.
In his presentation he spoke about the growing need of countering the worldwide privacy threats. He pointed out that about 75 percent of the nations did not have any privacy standards in place and those countries which already had these privacy rules, followed different models.
On one hand there was the European Union (EU), that had uniform and "inflexible" privacy standards for the member countries, and on the other hand there was the US, which had left it to its individual states to formulate their own privacy standards.
Google contended that the absence of a uniform privacy standard had left the consumer susceptible to privacy threats as their personal data often traveled over countries with divergent privacy standards. Google contended that protecting the consumer's privacy was of paramount importance as in the absence of such standards consumers might lose trust and undermine this medium.
Moreover, it argued that setting up of predictable rules would promote future innovations in this medium. Fleischer said that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Privacy Framework, which was adopted by the Asia-Pacific countries, offered the best balance of private and commercial interests.
The APEC Privacy Framework had nine principle including, preventing harm, integrity of personal information, notice and security safeguards. Fleischer argued that, if countries as diverse as Vietnam and Australia could agree on uniform privacy standards, then this framework could be agreed upon by other countries as well. Analysts noted that Google had been under the scanner with regard to its privacy policies.
Internet privacy concerns were first raised against the company in 2004 when a campaigning group, Privacy International, filed complaints against targeted ads in Gmail. More recently, in June 2007, Google was ranked
"hostile" by Privacy International in a ranking of Internet firms on their treatment of user's personal data.
Privacy concerns against the company were also raised by an EU working group composed of data protection officials from 27 countries. Google faced a lot of criticism when it acquired online advertising company DoubleClick, Inc. (DoubleClick). DoubleClick's practice of using technology to track user trends in order to serve targeted ads to the users had drawn flak in the past.
Google's critics said that it was ironic that the company was calling for establishing global privacy standards as they felt that it hardly cared for user privacy. They saw it as a move by Google to shift the attention away from the privacy concerns raised against the company.
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