Privacy boss severs consultancy arm

An IT-privacy consultant yesterday cancelled all of his client contracts amid allegations his other job as the face of a privacy watchdog posed a conflict of interest.



Simon Davies, founder of Privacy International, told CUK his separately-run 80/20 Thinking firm would pull 20 deals worth a total of £2m, and would cease to offer privacy advice from August.



His declaration follows complaints by Google that his criticism of its privacy policies was "far from impartial," because its archrival Microsoft was one of his company's clients.



The tensions between the protagonists first boiled over in June 2007, when PI gave the search leader the lowest rank for respecting individual privacy out of a host of tech leaders.



Last year, Mr Davies set up his privacy consultancy with Gus Hosein, another senior figure at Privacy International, under a pledge to donate half of its profits to projects in the third world.



Since then, 80/20 has secured an impressive list of clients, some of whom Google has called "direct rivals," including AOL, eBay and Phorm, a provider of internet monitoring technology.



In a company statement, 80/20 recognised there was a "long-term risk of a perception of conflict of interest," with PI as an independent privacy lobbyist, as a "number of observers" had implied.



But after the statement's release, Mr Davies defended his firm, saying any conflict of interest with PI, which he set up in 1990, was unintentional on both his and Mr Hosein's part.



"In our initial plans, there was never a question of conflict of interest. The conflict of interest claim comes from competitor companies or aggrieved third parties."



"What has taken place," he continued, "offers a template for any organisation to attack us [80-20] or PI simply on the basis of our corporate contacts being in an outfit which that organisation doesn't approve of."



On its website, 80/20 was more accepting. Its statement says it "respects the view'' that a conflict of interest exists between itself and PI, and will change from privacy advisor to tech developer as a result.



"We have to change direction significantly into technology development," Mr Davies confirmed. "Shortly we will make an announcement on the development of a privacy impact assessment system, but that is the only major revenue generator that we can contemplate at the moment".



Yet his future still looks intertwined with Google's: the Privacy International boss said his scrutiny of the search giant would only stop if another privacy advocate stepped up to the task.



"The reason we talk up about Google is that other organisations don't", he said. "If there was the same angst about Google's products and behavioural targeting [than there was for other companies], then we would move on".



Mr Davies said the "real tragedy" of closing his advisory unit was that £1m – 50% of its projected earnings - would have gone to help privacy movements in developing countries.