Google’s Facebook Copycat Moves Leave It More Exposed to Privacy Backlash
Signage is displayed on a toy ferris wheel in the lobby of the new Google campus in Boulder, Colorado.
Photographer: Daniel Brenner/BloombergNo one at Google envied Mark Zuckerberg last week as he was being grilled by Congress. But for years, they certainly coveted the personal data that made Facebook Inc. a formidable digital ad player. And the strategies they set to compete have now placed Google squarely in the cross hairs of a privacy backlash against the world’s largest social-media company.
The House and Senate questioned Zuckerberg for about 10 hours after revelations that data on millions of Facebook users got into the hands of Cambridge Analytica, a consulting firm that worked on President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The hearings centered on the digital information and machinery Facebook built up to serve targeted ads. No company has a bigger business doing that -- except Google. When the grilling ended, Democrats and some Republicans called for broad privacy regulation, putting Google on the hot seat next to Zuckerberg.