Consumer Watch Claims Contradiction In Google Official's Testimony

Consumer Watchdog, one of Google's most persistent critics called on the House Commerce Committee to hold a hearing into the firm's Wi-Fi data collection controversy, citing a discrepancy in a Google official's testimony on the matter during a Senate hearing in June.

Consumer Watchdog urged Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ranking Member Joe Barton (R-TX) to call Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Google Director of Privacy Engineering Alma Whitten to testify. The group claims that while Whitten has testified that Google did not breach any private data from the Wi-Fi networks, information revealed before the hearing from an investigation by the French National Commission on Computing and Liberty revealed the opposite. "Google has demonstrated a troubling pattern of changing its story in public statements as it has offered explanations of why it gathered private data from wireless networks. Moreover, it is clear that Whitten, who mentioned Google's Wi-Spying in congressional testimony this summer, gave a written statement that contradicted the facts," Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court and John Simpson, director of the group's Inside Google project, wrote.