• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, December 2, 2008

When the AT&T-backed Future of Privacy Forum launched last month, some industry observers assumed the group had an anti-Google agenda, while others took a wait-and-see attitude.

But in the last week, it's looking more and more like the group's core mission includes bashing Internet ad companies in general, and Google in particular.

Consider this fear-mongering column, authored by the organization's co-chair, Chris Wolf, that ran in Saturday's Bangkok Post. "There is no doubt that the Internet search giant has helped people around the world access useful information. But what if Google's technology was used to keep track of you -- your whereabouts and your activities and records were kept of where you have been?" Wolf asks.

The piece, "Google is Watching You," goes on to warn readers about Google programs that potentially threaten privacy, such as its geolocation application for mobile devices. "The application is designed to let restaurants, salons, malls and other businesses and interested parties advertise to you while you are on the move. If it sounds like someone is watching you, that's because that may be the case," the column says.

Wolf then touts the privacy practices of AT&T, Time-Warner Cable and Verizon, enthusing that they recently promised Congress that "any new technologies they develop will provide full disclosure to consumers about how their data are used and would give users real choices to opt out of having their personal information used in a way they do not approve."

Jules Polonetsky, the Future of Privacy Forum's other co-chair, said this afternoon that the column doesn't reflect the views of the group.

Still, it's hard to divorce the anti-Google opinions of an organization's co-chair from the group.

Some industry insiders, certainly, are taking the column as an indication of the think tank's agenda. "The Future of Privacy Forum has chosen to come out immediately and show itself as a shill for their sole funder, AT&T, in what is really this covert war against the Internet advertising industry," Mike Zaneis, vice president of public policy for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, tells MediaPost. (Last week, the Future of Privacy Forum made other suggestions that seemed to take aim at behavioral targeting. For instance, the group told consumers to delete their cookies and/or use Microsoft's IE8 browser to prevent tracking for ad-serving purposes.)

Even some privacy advocates, who might otherwise agree that Google poses a threat, are offended that Wolf didn't more fully disclose his relationship with AT&T. The column notes that Wolf is a lawyer at Proskauer Rose, but doesn't explain that AT&T is a client of the firm. "This op-ed shows that Wolf's new Privacy Forum is really nothing more than a stalking horse for AT&T's ambition to undermine Google," Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy tells MediaPost. "The Privacy Forum should be forced to register as an AT&T lobbyist."