Gurgle

London-based Privacy International has given Google its worst possible rating on issues of customer privacy after a survey of 23 of the web's top destinations.

The category is reserved for companies with "comprehensive consumer surveillance and entrenched hostility to privacy."

None of the 22 other surveyed companies - a group that included Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and AOL - sunk to that level, according to Privacy International.

Google, of course, declares itself not guilty even though the findings are based on the company's own policies. A company statement noted that last year, Google

successfully fought a U.S. Justice Department subpoena demanding to review millions of search requests.

What's more, one of the giant's legal eagles said it was a "shame" that the report was published "before we had an opportunity to discuss our privacy practices with" the privacy group's researchers.

That defense might be persuasive but for three things: First, during that dispute last year, one of Google's big complaints was that the feds' request was "burdensome," i.e., it was too expensive and too much of a hassle. It's natural to wonder if "protecting privacy" was just the fall-back feel-good position that would sound nice in the press releases.

Second, the reason no one from Google talked with Privacy International about corporate privacy practices was because the company never answered PI's inquiry.

Last but not least,

[t]he scathing report is just the latest strike aimed at Google's privacy practices.

An independent European panel recently opened an inquiry into whether Google's policies abide by Europe's privacy rules.

Meanwhile, three consumer groups in the United States are pressuring the nation's regulators to make Google change some of its privacy policies as part of its proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of online ad service DoubleClick Inc., which also tracks Web surfers' behavior.

A summary of the report is here; a chart of the findings, in .pdf format, is here.

Footnote: Privacy International, which had previously issued complaints about Google's Gmail system, is accusing Google of launching a "smear campaign" against PI to discredit the report.

I remember when Gmail first started, I looked at the privacy policy and was appalled; calling it a "privacy" policy at all seemed a bizarre joke. I am still amazed that people signed up for it.