Watchdog Accuses Google of Invading the Privacy of Its Internet Surfers

When it comes to snooping in cyberspace, internet giant Google is the online world's biggest brother, according to a new report. The California-based company, famed for its enlightened style of management, is painted in a less flattering light in the first attempt to rank internet companies on their respect for users' privacy.

The human rights campaign Privacy International, which conducts an annual audit ranking countries according to how they respect their citizens' privacy, has analyzed the world's leading internet companies.

The firms analyzed, including Microsoft, Apple, eBay and Yahoo, were placed along a spectrum ranging from black to yellow, with black signaling the worst invaders of users' privacy and yellow those that showed the most respect. Marks were awarded according to 20 criteria including how willing companies were to allow customers to delete their accounts, their privacy policies, the level of information they collected about users and the length of time they retained it. None of the companies made it into the yellow category, and only Google ended up in the black signifying it is 'hostile to privacy' according to Privacy International.

'We are aware that the decision to place Google at the bottom of the ranking is likely to be controversial, but throughout our research we have found numerous deficiencies and hostilities in Google's approach to privacy,' the campaign group claims in the preliminary report. In the report, Privacy International claims that:

· Users of Google's services must accept the company can retain a large quantity of information about them, often indefinitely.

· Google has access to additional personal information, including hobbies, employment, address, and phone number, from user profiles in its social networking service, Orkut.

· Google collects all search results from its Toolbar search service and identifies all users with a unique 'cookie' - information sent between a web browser and the server - that allows it to track users' web use.

Last night Google defended its privacy policy and launched a scathing attack of the methodology used to compile the report which it said contained inaccuracies. '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,' said Nicole Wong, the company's deputy general counsel.

Growing concern about corporate and government control of personal information was expressed last week at an event hosted by Amnesty International and The Observer to mark one year of the Irrepressible.info campaign against internet censorship.