Scott Cleland:

Memo: To All Google Spokespeople

From: Brandi Sparkles & the Privacy Excuse Algorithm Team (PEAT)



RE: The New Google Public Line on FTC/State/EU Privacy Investigations



Google has changed the company’s public line concerning our inadvertent, unintentional, un-anticipatable, accidental, unexpected, unwitting, un-premeditated, unconscious, and totally innocent bypassing of Apple Safari browser’s privacy protections, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal February 19th, and which is now being investigated by the FTC, State Attorneys General, and the EU per the WSJ today.



Initially, Google said: “The Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why. We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled. It’s important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.”



Upon advice of our attorneys — who informed us that the crux of Google’s potential legal and financial penalty liability stems from whether or not Google’s actions were intentional or willful — we now fully, totally, completely, absolutely, and with-every-fiber-of-our-body, retract, repudiate, rescind, revoke and recant our original media statement because it dripped with intent and willfulness.



Our new statement previewed today in the WSJ: “We will of course cooperate with any officials who have questions, but it’s important to remember that we didn’t anticipate this would happen, and we have been removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers,” is now the operative Google public statement going forward.

Paris School of Economics:

There has been a marked revival of interest in the study of the distribution of top incomes using tax data. Beginning with the research by Piketty of the long-run distribution of top incomes in France (2001, 2003), a succession of studies has constructed top income share time series over the long-run for more than twenty countries to date. These projects have generated a large volume of data, which are intended as a research resource for further analysis.


The world top incomes database aims to providing convenient on line access to all the existent series. This is an ongoing endeavour, and we will progressively update the base with new observations, as authors extend the series forwards and backwards. Despite the database’s name, we will also add information on the distribution of earnings and the distribution of wealth. As the map below shows, around forty-five further countries are under study, and will be incorporated at some point (see Work in Progress).