The report follows the group's six-month investigation into the privacy practices of key internet based companies across the full range of search, email, e-commerce and social networking websites. It was compiled using data derived from public sources, such as blogs and newspaper articles, as well as information supplied by both present and former employees, technical reviews and interviews with company representatives.
In the report, which also included Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL, PI ranks Google as worse than any other Internet company surveyed, claiming that Google was "hostile to privacy", with Google's competitors faring only marginally better. PI cited the large amounts of data Google collects about its users and a lack of privacy controls as the main reasons for Google's shortcomings in the report.
"Google's increasing ability to deep-drill into the minutiae of a user's life and lifestyle choices must in our view be coupled with well defined and mature user controls and an equally mature privacy outlook," Privacy International commented. "Neither of these elements has been demonstrated."
However, a recent bigmouthmedia survey into Google's privacy intentions revealed that Google was the search engine that users most trusted to keep records of their search data secure, ranking the search giant above its competitors. According to the research, 38 per cent of users surveyed trusted Google to keep their searches private, while only 23 per cent expressed trust in Yahoo! and 21 per cent in MSN.
Google echoed these findings in a statement read by Google's associate general counsel, Nicole Wong, as they refuted the findings of Privacy International's report.
"We are disappointed with Privacy International's report which is based on numerous inaccuracies and misunderstandings about our services... We stand by our record for protecting user privacy and offering products that are transparent about what information is collected and empower users to control their personal information."
PI has previously raised concerns about Google's privacy practices. In 2004, the group filed a complaint over Google's Gmail service, which targets relevant advertising to users based on the contents of their email. Google has consistently rejected concerns over the information it gathers and stores about users.
