Google Founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page shown above.
In addition to traditional business concerns like monopoly, restraint of trade, antitrust, patent, misuse and manipulation of search results, collaboration with the US military on Google Earth to spy on users, censorship of search results and content, and the energy consumption of its servers, Google is criticized for these practices as well as for using others’ intellectual property without permission.
Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, is an American multinational public business with investments in cloud computing, advertising, and Internet search technologies. A lot of Internet-based services and products are hosted by Google, which also creates them.
In December 2009, after privacy concerns were raised, Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, declared: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines—including Google—do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.”
At the Techonomy conference in 2010, Eric Schmidt predicted that “true transparency and no anonymity” is the way forward for the internet: “In a world of asynchronous threats it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it.” He also said that “If I look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use artificial intelligence, we can predict where you are going to go. Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don’t have 14 photos of yourself on the internet? You’ve got Facebook photos!”
What the United States Constitution Says
The Fourth Amendment - The right of the people to be secure in their persons , houses , papers , and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
According to the group of 15 state attorneys general suing Google for antitrust issues,Google and Facebook entered into a price-fixing agreement termed Jedi Blue to monopolize the online advertising market and prevent the entry of the fairer header bidding method of advertisement sales on any major advertising platform. The agreement consisted of Facebook using the Google-managed system for bidding on and managing online ads in exchange for preferential rates and priority on prime ad placement. This allowed Google to retain its profitable monopoly over online ad exchanges, while saving Facebook billions of dollars on attempts to build competing systems. Over 200 newspapers have sued Google and Facebook to recover losses incurred by the collusion.
Google admitted that the deal contained, “a provision governing cooperation between Google and Facebook in the event of certain government investigations.” Google has an internal team called gTrade dedicated to maximizing Google’s advertising profits, reportedly using insider information, price fixing, and leveraging Google’s relative monopoly positions.
What the United States Constitution Says
First Amendment - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The Fourth Amendment - The right of the people to be secure in their persons , houses , papers , and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
According to the group of 15 state attorneys general suing Google for antitrust issues,Google and Facebook entered into a price-fixing agreement termed Jedi Blue to monopolize the online advertising market and prevent the entry of the fairer header bidding method of advertisement sales on any major advertising platform. The agreement consisted of Facebook using the Google-managed system for bidding on and managing online ads in exchange for preferential rates and priority on prime ad placement. This allowed Google to retain its profitable monopoly over online ad exchanges, while saving Facebook billions of dollars on attempts to build competing systems. Over 200 newspapers have sued Google and Facebook to recover losses incurred by the collusion.
Google admitted that the deal contained, “a provision governing cooperation between Google and Facebook in the event of certain government investigations.” Google has an internal team called gTrade dedicated to maximizing Google’s advertising profits, reportedly using insider information, price fixing, and leveraging Google’s relative monopoly positions.
In June 2015, Google reached an advertising agreement with Yahoo!, which would have allowed Yahoo! to feature Google advertisements on its web pages. The alliance between the two companies was never completely realized because of antitrust concerns by the U.S. Department of Justice. As a result, Google pulled out of the deal in November 2018.[24][25][26]
In testimony before a U.S. Senate antitrust panel in September 2011, Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman, said that “the Internet is the ultimate level playing field” where users were “one click away” from competitors.[27] Nonetheless, Senator Kohl asked Schmidt if Google’s market share constituted a monopoly – a special power dominant – for his company. Schmidt acknowledged that Google’s market share was akin to a monopoly, but noted the complexity of the law.[28][29]
During the hearing, Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, accused Google of cooking its search results to favor its own services. Schmidt replied, “Senator, I can assure we haven’t cooked anything.”[27]
In testimony before the same Senate panel, Jeffrey Katz and Jeremy Stoppelman, the chief executives from Google’s competitors Nextag and Yelp, said that Google tilts search results in its own favor, limiting choice and stifling competition.[27]
In October 2012, it was reported that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission staff were preparing a recommendation that the government sue Google on antitrust grounds. The areas of concern include accusations of manipulating the search results to favor Google services such as Google Shopping for buying goods and Google Places for advertising local restaurants and businesses; whether Google’s automated advertising marketplace, AdWords, discriminates against advertisers from competing online commerce services like comparison shopping sites and consumer review Web sites; whether Google’s contracts with smartphone makers and carriers prevent them from removing or modifying Google products, such as its Android operating system or Google Search; and Google’s use of its smartphone patents. A likely outcome of the antitrust investigations is a negotiated settlement where Google would agree not to discriminate in favor of its products over smaller competitors.[30] Federal Trade Commission ended its investigation during a period which the co-founder of Google, Larry Page, had met with individuals at the White House and the Federal Trade Commission, leading to voluntary changes by Google; since January 2009 to March 2015 employees of Google have met with officials in the White House about 230 times according to The Wall Street Journal.[31]
Google cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the period of 2007 to 2009 using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and The Netherlands to Bermuda. Afterwards, the company started to send £8 billion in profits a year to Bermuda.[7] Google’s income shifting—involving strategies known to lawyers as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich”—helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.[8][9]
According to economist and member of the PvdA delegation inside the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats in the European Parliament (S&D) Paul Tang, the EU lost, from 2013 to 2015, a loss estimated to be 3.955 billion Euros from Google.[10] When comparing to other countries outside the EU, the EU is only taxing Google with a rate of 0,36 – 0,82% of their revenue (approx. 25-35% of their EBT) whereas this rate is near 8% in countries outside the EU. Even if a rate of 2 to 5% – as suggested by ECOFIN council – would have been applied during this period (2013-2015), a fraud of this rate from Facebook would have meant a loss from 1.262 to 3.155 billion euros in the EU.[10]
Google has been accused by a number of countries of avoiding paying tens of billions of dollars of tax through a convoluted scheme of inter-company licensing agreements and transfers to tax havens.[11][12] For example, Google has used highly contrived and artificial distinctions to avoid paying billions of pounds in corporate tax owed by its UK operations.[13]
On May 15, 2013, Margaret Hodge, the chair of the United Kingdom Public Accounts Committee, accused Google of being “calculated and […] unethical” over its use of the scheme.[13] Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has claimed that this scheme of Google is “capitalism”,[14] and that he was “very proud” of it.[15]
In November 2012, the UK government announced plans to investigate Google, along with Starbucks and Amazon.com, for possible tax avoidance.[16] In 2015, the UK Government introduced a new law intended to penalize Google’s and other large multinational corporations’ artificial tax avoidance.[17]
On 20 January 2016, Google announced that it would pay £130m in back taxes to settle the investigation.[18] However, only 8 days later, it was announced that Google could end up paying more, and UK tax officials were under investigation for what has been termed a “sweetheart deal” for Google.[19]
