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January 29, 2008
Ask Eraser Prompts Privacy Squabble, Second FTC Petition
Forbes' Andy Greenberg has an interesting report on the repercussions from a complaint filed with the FTC last week in which one policy group, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), broke with EPIC and five other groups who argued that Ask.com's "Ask Eraser" service be shutdown for misleading consumers.
The gist of the CDT's issue with EPIC and others is that Ask's service isn't perfect, but is at least incrementally progressive. An EPIC executive says the CDT's defense of Ask.com is dubious, considering the search engine's parent company donated $10,000 to the CDT. $10,000 is a trivial sum for an organization with an annual budget in the millions, but the money was worthwhile enough to take. It make's the CDT's relative isolation from several other major privacy groups on this issue suspect.
Greenberg also reports that EPIC will be filing a second complaint with the FTC over Ask Eraser today.
(Link)
Posted by mhall at 4:40 PM | Add Comment
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