Google Named Worst Privacy Offender in Study

A new report puts Google in last place when it comes to privacy protection. Despite recent moves to anonymise server logs and other pro-privacy gestures, Privacy International called the company an endemic threat to privacy. Only Google earned the dismal black color bar from the group, which has just issued a report on Internet privacy that took six months to assemble (see the rankings [PDF]). The current report is preliminary; final results will be released in September. The report rated top Internet companies on privacy issues and distilled the various results into a single color bar. Microsoft was two ranks up from Google, earning a curry-colored serious lapses rating. Amazon scored one level higher with its yellow notable lapses rank, and eBay did even better, earning a coveted blue bar. No company earned a top mark, however