Three of the stars last year -- "requires a warrant", "publishes transparency reports", and "publishes law enforcement guidelines" -- were merged into a single star "follows industry best practices". According to the report, a company has to do all three of those things to qualify.
It's perfectly reasonable for the EFF to evolve how they're rating companies as the years go on. After all, the privacy landscape changes and they're trying to push companies to making some changes. That explains the drop in stars. According to the EFF, Google is doing things that are now considered standard, and they're no longer on the forefront of defending privacy.
Your accusations of bias because Google isn't funding the EFF are, frankly, ridiculous.
If that were the only major difference, Google would still have 4 stars with the 5th undecided. Google now have 3 stars.
>Your accusations of bias because Google isn't funding the EFF are, frankly, ridiculous.
To be clear, I am not accusing EFF of bias against Google.
Other privacy organisations have literally accused the EFF of lobbying for Google. From Wikipedia:
"In 2011, the EFF received $1 million from Google as part of a settlement of a class action related to privacy issues involving Google Buzz. EPIC and seven other privacy-focused nonprofits protested that that the plaintiffs lawyers and Google had, in effect, arranged to give the majority of those funds "to organizations that are currently paid by Google to lobby for or to consult for the company.""
Since then, the EFF spoke up loudly against the right to be forgotten (Google Spain v AEPD and Mario Costeja González), even though this is considered a privacy basic by EU data protection principles.
It's perfectly reasonable for the EFF to evolve how they're rating companies as the years go on. After all, the privacy landscape changes and they're trying to push companies to making some changes. That explains the drop in stars. According to the EFF, Google is doing things that are now considered standard, and they're no longer on the forefront of defending privacy.
Your accusations of bias because Google isn't funding the EFF are, frankly, ridiculous.