Social Media: Apple, Google, Microsoft unite against NSA spying program but do they have "clean hands" themselves?

US Freedom act letter reports that the top US tech companies are sharpening their blades in their battle with the National Security Agency. While they've been doggedly asking for transparency on the agency's mass surveillance program for months, they're now calling for reform.

Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, and AOL penned a letter (pdf) to the lead members of the Senate Judiciary Committee recently urging the lawmakers to substantially reform the NSA surveillance practices. The companies also asked for additional oversight and accountability mechanisms for the spying programs.

If one digs a little deeper into this several questions arise.

Have, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and other IT done this as a calculated PR move to focus their customers attention and Public entities like the EU Commission away from their own privacy issues with these companies to the NSA, today's favorite whipping boy?

Let us not forget that Google may have gotten out of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) antitrust investigation without much of a penalty earlier this year, but the European Commission is still after them for a variety of issues.It is well known that Google has been in hot water around the world for collecting Wi-Fi data using its Street View vehicles.

German regulators say that Google's vehicles already captured data such as the contents of e-mails, passwords, photos, and chat protocols using its cars between 2008 and 2010.

Microsoft Corp has been recently fined 561 million euros ($731 million) for failing to offer users a choice of web browser, an unprecedented sanction that will act as a warning to other firms involved in EU antitrust disputes.

It said the U.S. software company had broken a legally binding commitment made in 2009 to the EU which ensured that consumers had a choice of how they access the internet, rather than defaulting to Microsoft's Explorer browser.

As to Apple. Carriers throughout Europe have sent information regarding their contracts with Apple to the European Commission saying that Apple's rules for carrying the iPhone are anticompetitive.

While Apple's terms are different from carrier to carrier, a major complaint from the European carriers is that Apple forces them to sell a certain amount of iPhones over a determined amount of time. If the carrier does not meet this quota, then they must pay Apple for the unsold devices.

This isn't Apple's first run-in with the European Commission. In December 2011, Apple and book publishers Penguin, Harper Collins (News Corp., USA), Simon & Schuster (CBS Corp., USA), Hachette Livre (Lagardère Publishing France) and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck (owner of inter-alia Macmillan, Germany) were under the microscope when the EU found out about their selling practices.

It is essential say lawmakers that when new laws are drawn up regarding privacy, protection of information, anti-trust abuses etc., these laws must cover all  the players, without exception, from both the Private and Public sector. 

Bottom line: In the meantime people who live in glass houses shouldn’t be throwing stones.  

EU-Digest