Privacy Group Slaps Google Apps

In an embarrassing and potentially catastrophic incident earlier this month, Google accidentally shared the private word-processing documents of some Google Apps users with their associates. The glitch only affected .05 percent of users' documents but nevertheless raised fears that a software bug or errant line of code could shut down e-mail around the world, render confidential business and government documents public, and cost businesses a fortune in lost time and blown deals.

Now, the Electronic Privacy Information Center has formally asked the Federal Trade Commission to do nothing less than shut down Google Apps altogether. According to CNet, the Washington, D.C.-based privacy advocates have sent a letter to the FTC, arguing that Google's "inadequate security practices" constitute "unfair or deceptive acts or practices" and that the government must file a legal injunction shutting down all of the company's cloud computing services until its security "safeguards are verifiably established." Google is still reviewing the letter but offered a pro forma statement about how seriously it takes security.

We have a hard time imagining this is anything but an opening gambit in a strategy to force Google to beef up its privacy safeguards. If the FTC froze Google Apps, hundreds of millions of people would suddenly find their e-mail, business documents, and personal records locked up in cyberspace; the move would sow chaos around the world. It's certainly telling that EPIC also wants Google to be forced to pay $5 million into a privacy advocacy fund that, CNet claims, it could possibly benefit from. Is EPIC taking advantage of Google's vulnerability to extort a little cash? Or is Google setting up hundreds of millions of people to rely on a flawed cloud-computing network? And if the FTC's most powerful regulatory tool would cause far more harm than good, has Google Apps officially become too big to fail?