] Every year, Chris Hoofnagle organizes the US Big Brother
] Awards under the auspices of a public interest group
] called Privacy International. "These are awards we give
] out to government institutions and businesses who've done
] the most to invade our privacy," says Hoofnagle, who also
] serves as deputy counsel for the Electronic Privacy
] Information Center (EPIC), another public-interest group
] concerned with maintaining civil rights on the Internet.
]
] The awards won't be announced until March, but Hoofnagle
] recently received a nomination that he found particularly
] worthy of investigation. Representatives of a Web site
] called Google Watch sent him an e-mail complaining about
] privacy infringements by none other than the Web's most
] popular search engine. Basically, the e-mail accused
] Google of disseminating spyware. Google, the message
] said, was using its Toolbar application to collect reams
] of information about the surfing habits of the world's PC
] users.