Headquartered in California, Consumer Watchdog is not a fan of Google and has spent a lot of time, effort and money monitoring the Cookie Monster's activities and what it refers to as the company's "cozy" relationship with successive US administrations.
In recent months, the organisation has been focusing on Google's so-called 'privacy practices' and frequently hauls the company over the coals for the hypocritical use of its much-vaunted mission statement and corporate mantra, "don't be evil".
Indeed, Consumer Watchdog hit the headlines last summer when it ran a video on a massive screes in New York's Times Square portraying then Google CEO Eric Schmidt as a dodgy and exploitative ice cream salesman. That hit a nerve. Mr. Schmidt is very big on personal dignity and his own privacy even though he drove Street View vehicles right through the privacy of millions of others.
Now, though Consumer Catchdog is applying pressure in another area and has sent an official 32-page letter to Representative Darrell Issa, the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, demanding a probe into the relationship and connections between Google and and a slew of government agencies.
Consumer Watchdog says there are questions to be asked about Google's many technology and services supply contracts with federal agencies in general and with its "secretive" relationship with the NSA in particular.
Consumer Watchdog also isn't for letting the scandal, of Google's Street View cars sucking up private unencrypted data from open Wi-Fi connections as they passed by on their mission to photograph every house on the face of the planet, die quietly away and also wants to know the details of Google's allegedly preferential use of a NASA airfield in California close to the Google HQ.
In the letter Consumer Watchdog writes, "We believe Google has inappropriately benefited from close ties to the administration. Google may be most consumers' gateway to the Internet. Nonetheless, it should not get special treatment and access because of a special relationship with the administration."
Mr. Issa, a California Republican, is broadly sympathetic to Consumer Watchdog's demands and has in the past been critical of Google's machinations and business practices.
Last summer he raised concerns that the Deputy Chief Technology Officer at the Obama White House Andrew McLaughlin, who also just happens to be the former head of global public policy for Google, had what the representative called "inappropriate e-mail contact with company employees."
In response to the demand for an investigation, a Google apparatchik said, "This is just the latest in a long list of press stunts from an organisation that admits to working closely with our competitors." Google consistently complains that Consumer Watchdog focuses on it almost exclusively and fails to examine the likes of MicroSoft with the same determination or rigour.
For its part, Consumer Watchdog says ""We have no relationship with Microsoft at all. We do not take any of their money."
The organisation says it is looking so consistently closely at Google because most people use it as a portal to the Internet, and this confers enormous power. Consumer Watchdog writes "It [Google] is, without a doubt, THE dominant Internet company" and adds that if it is not watched closely and brought to heel when it oversteps the mark in privacy and other areas of corporate responsibility, other companies will follow Google's example and attempt to ride roughshod over privacy legislation.
A Consumer Watchdog spokesperson said, "Google, with its "don't be evil" motto, holds itself to be a special company also advocates openness for everyone else. We're just trying to hold them to their own words."
Last year Consumer Watchdog described Google as "too big and powerful" and called for it to be broken up. Now the organisation is asking for a probe into whether or not Google's contracts with federal agencies, including the NSA and the Department of Defense were "fast-tracked" through the procurement system to the detriment of Google's rivals
More importantly, Consumer Watchdog wants to know just what and how much information about the Internet habits of individual consumers Google shares with the NSA.
A spokesman said, "I understand the NSA is a super-secret spook organisation, but given Google's very special situation where it possesses so much personal data about people, I think that there ought to be a little more openness about what precisely goes on between the two."
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