Facebook appears to be in the spotlight for funding a “non-profit” to attack Google … when in reality it appears to have been fully funded by for profit Facebook.
The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and a top FTC staffer traded emails in 2010 about whether Facebook and other tech companies were secretly funding a nonprofit group pushing hard for regulators to investigate Google Inc.
The messages, revealed in internal emails recently obtained by The Washington Times through the Freedom of Information Act, were exchanged as the FTC was being asked by the California-based group Consumer Watchdog to investigate Google’s “Street View” mapping project. The project came under scrutiny after Google said it had mistakenly harvested personal data from homeowners’ unsecured wireless networks..
The FTC correspondence centered on a May 18, 2010, report by the Wall Street Journal, “FTC Likely to Examine Google’s Wireless Gaffe,” which noted how Consumer Watchdog called on the FTC to launch a probe. The article prompted Cecelia Prewett, director of the FTC’s public affairs office, to send an email to colleagues asking, “Who’s feeding him?”