Google Accord With Harvard Tie Fails Judge’s Smell Test

Google Inc.’s settlement of a privacy lawsuit probably won’t win approval because it includes a donation to an Internet research center at Harvard University and to other schools that attorneys who brought the case attended, a judge said.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila voiced his concerns at a hearing today in San Jose, California, over the settlement of a suit claiming the company transferred personal information contained in user searches to third parties including marketers and data brokers. The proposed accord includes several million dollars of funding for privacy research earmarked for institutes at Harvard, Stanford University and Chicago-Kent College of Law.