Google slaps down Tory MP David Davis

David DavisImage by Captain Snap's Photos via Flickr

The Conservative David Davis seems like someone to know. He’s clearly a mover and shaker. He’s taken on Google and this is going to be interesting. Will the Tories be embarrassed publicly by the search giant?

Google feels the need to set the record straight with Davis’ comments on Google’s privacy policies.

This won’t surprise any of us in search. We know just how hard Google tries to do the right thing with privacy but just how thorny privacy issues liberally pepper the technological landscape.

Google spend a lot of effort trying to promote their pro-privacy options. They spend even more time trying to be the consumer’s best friend. Unfortunately for David Davis Google are using their European Public Policy Blog to respond to him, this blog seems to have become something of an attack channel for Google and the search engine seems to have decided Joe Public consumer isn’t likely to read it.

How well did the Tory MP do with the facts? According to Google;
Responding to speculation in the Times several weeks ago that the Conservative party was in favour of giving patients the ability to transfer their medical records to private companies, Mr Davis decided to launch an extraordinary attack on Google, riddled with misleading statements. Of course, Mr Davis didn't ask us first for our comments or to check his facts before going to press.

The whole post is worth a read. Google pick up the following points;
  • That Google is hostile to privacy.
  • That Google claims European privacy doesn’t apply to it.
  • That Google entered into an “amoral deal” with China
  • That Google makes money from exploiting its customers’ private data

What’s your point of view?

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