Consumer Watchdog has criticized the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s proposed $22.5-million fine that Google might pay in connection with privacy settings on Apple’s Safari browser.

The consumer advocacy group also complains that the FTC does not have a permanent injunction against Google for violating the earlier “Buzz” consent decree.

SAN FRANCISCO – The Federal Trade Commission’s proposed $22.5 million settlement with Google for hacking past privacy settings on Apple’s Safari browser fails to include a permanent injunction against violating its “Buzz” Consent Decree with the Commission, one of three reasons it be should be rejected, Consumer Watchdog said today.

Google admitted Friday to the British data protection authorities that it failed to keep its promise to destroy data its Street View cars sucked up from private Wi-Fi networks. True to its form throughout out the Wi-Spy scandal, the Internet giant claimed it was all a mistake.

Consumer Watchdog has long held the view that Google's executives are hypocrites, claiming their mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, while remaining deeply secretive about the company's activities.

SANTA MONICA, CA – Consumer Watchdog today countered Google’s objections to the Federal Communications Commission’s release of detailed documents about the Commission’s investigation
of how Google hacked into private Wi-Fi networks and sought broad disclosure of the documents’ contents.

SANTA MONICA, CA – Consumer Watchdog today filed a Freedom Of Information Act Request with the Federal Communications Commission seeking all documents related to the Commission’s investigation of the Google Wi-Spy scandal.

In its relatively short lifespan, Google has turned into a real-life Zardoz, the all-knowing stone head that dominates a post-apocalyptic Earth in the 1974 science fiction film of the same name. But unlike the openly malevolent Zardoz, Google cloaks itself in a do-no-evil mantle.

But that mantle, like the curtain that shielded the ill-fated Wizard of Oz, may be wearing a bit thin as critics question how much Google knew about the rogue engineer supposedly responsible for Google's gathering of massive payloads of data from private Wi-Fi networks.