NLPC presented a shareholder proposal today at Alphabet‘s 2025 annual meeting of shareholders that asked the company to report on its AI data privacy efforts. NLPC warned that the company’s history of data ethics violations could torpedo its AI initiatives. Instead, NLPC argues the company should focus on privacy to differentiate from competitors such as Microsoft or Meta.
The company’s board of directors opposed our proposal, as explained on pages 86-87 of its 2025 proxy statement. NLPC’s response to the board’s opposition statement was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month.
Presenting the proposal at the meeting was Luke Perlot, associate director of NLPC’s Corporate Integrity Project. An audio recording of his presentation can be found here, and a transcript of his three-minute remarks follows:
Good morning.
Artificial intelligence is revealing itself as one of the most transformative innovations in modern economic history, with power to improve everything from health care to financial services—but only if it is built on trust.
AI thrives on data, yet that hunger tempts developers to harvest vast amounts of information that may be obtained unethically or illegally.
Alphabet stands at the very center of this dilemma.
The Company has disclosed that its Gemini models are trained on user data collected on its platforms, including Google Search, and YouTube—platforms where people seek information and enjoy entertainment, not realizing they are providing source material for commercial AI systems.
Alphabet’s revised privacy policy now allows an expansive range of personal photos, videos, and text to be funneled into its models without explicit consent.
Alphabet already faces legal and regulatory backlash for poor privacy in its AI initiatives.
Meanwhile, the integration of Gemini-powered features such as “AI Overviews” in Search, “Help me write” in Gmail, and the Gemini sidebar across Google Workspace magnifies the risk that sensitive queries, private e-mails, or proprietary business documents could be ingested and resurfaced in unexpected ways, exposing the Company to class actions, regulatory penalties, and reputational damage that no marketing budget can cure.
Consumers consistently tell pollsters they do not trust companies to handle their data; McKinsey finds firms that lead on privacy gain a durable competitive advantage, while laggards bleed users and revenue.
Shareholders therefore have a clear interest in understanding how Alphabet acquires, vets, and deploys external information, and whether adequate safeguards exist to prevent misuse.
Proposal Number 11 asks only for a straightforward, annually updated report describing the material risks of improper data sourcing, the controls in place to mitigate them, and the metrics by which effectiveness is measured.
Transparent disclosure will help protect Alphabet’s historic valuation, reassure billions of users, and demonstrate that the Company intends to win the AI race without abandoning the principles that first made its services indispensable.
A concise audit will cost little yet yield outsized returns in goodwill, compliance readiness, and long-term value for both the Company and its global community.
I urge my fellow shareholders to vote FOR Proposal Number 11. Thank you.
Read NLPC’s shareholder proposal for the Alphabet annual meeting here.
Listen to Luke Perlot’s presentation of the proposal at the meeting here.
Read NLPC’s response, filed with the SEC, to the company’s opposition to our shareholder proposal, here.
