A privacy advocacy group has asked the Federal Trade Commission to pull the plug on Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and the company's other Web apps until government-approved "safeguards are verifiably established."

The Electronic Privacy Information Center submitted the far-reaching request to the FTC in a letter from its director, Marc Rotenberg, on Tuesday. It argues that a formal legal injunction halting all Google cloud-computing services pending formal government approval is necessary to "adequately safeguard the confidential information" of users.

Paragraph 57 of EPIC's letter asks the FTC to "enjoin Google from offering cloud computing services until safeguards are verifiably established."

The complaints invoke the FTC's legal authority to file civil lawsuits against "unfair or deceptive acts or practices." In this case, EPIC claims that Google is violating that law because of its "inadequate security practices."

"One of the powers of the FTC is to say if you can't provide a safe product, we can take it from the marketplace," Rotenberg said. He acknowledged having the FTC attempt to pull the plug on Google Apps until privacy fixes were done was a long shot, but said the broader goal was to raise awareness of the privacy and security risks of cloud computing. (EPIC previously claimed Gmail was illegal and attempted to have it shut down.)

said by MIllIlITER :

LOL - fat chance this will ever happen. But it does show that some of these consumer advocacy groups are smoking dope.