Google, Stanford and Privacy Research

Stanford University has a close relationship with nearby Google. In fact, Google’s founders went to Stanford, where they first came up with their billion-dollar idea. Google has long donated to Stanford, and the university has used the money to pay for lots of research including research on internet privacy. That has proven to be a little awkward, given the fact that research conducted by Stanford led to a privacy-related fine against Google for about $22 million. Now, the Stanford center that conducted that research is no longer getting money from Google to study privacy. But both Stanford and Google say there’s no link.