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0 pointsgrandalf12y ago0 comments

We do not know this and it would be questionable if the risk associated with such an act would be worth it considering that Google can actually use its resources to move things in a legal way. (via courts, lobbying in Washington etc.)

Google's legal initiatives are largely just naked lobbying for its own corporate interest. SOPA in particular. Nothing wrong with this but it's a lot different than using its legal team to fight government abuses. Google is reasonably scared and chastened by Microsoft's massive antitrust battle, and Eric Schmidt pragmatically ramped up lobbying and philanthropy when he took the helm.

They let you take all your data out of all Google products: http://www.dataliberation.org/takeout-products

Do you think this removes it from the system that the NSA has access to?

They fight governments data requests in courts (sometimes successfully) and release strongly worded statements when they are allowed to.

Strongly worded PR statements while being 100% cooperative. My guess is that the statements are run by the NSA for approval before they are published.

Suggesting that we ended up with an abusive goverment because Google slavishly followed orders seems unrealistic to me.

I did not argue this. But it's a very slow and gradual slide into tyranny, and Google has done nothing to prevent the obvious abuses. I again point to the Government's treatment of Microsoft as a significant driver of Google's supplication.

The survival of the NSA does not depend on public trust and a positive public image - Google does.

Only when the information is kept secret does the NSA's survival not depend on public trust. I'd argue that the NSA depends more on public trust than Google, since Google's motives are very clear, at least insofar as the shareholders are concerned. The NSA is there to protect US interests which generally are not documented and are subject to the whims of both high level and low level officials.

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DannyBee12y ago· 3 in thread

"Google's legal initiatives are largely just naked lobbying for its own corporate interest. SOPA in particular.'

This is where I stopped reading.

I personally know all of the people at Google involved in doing SOPA, and you have literally no idea what you are talking about.

You are talking about a group of people mostly from places like EFF, Creative Commons, and other wonderful orgs. They do it because they want to make the world better, don't want to see the internet censored, and because it's the right thing to do. Maybe you are too cynical and jaded to do something like that, but they aren't. Your opinions have zero basis in fact.

(I read the rest, and it's equally as uninformed. You no nothing of what google has tried to do, done, or anything of the sort, be it related to the NSA or anything else. If Google puts out press releases, you call them self-interested, if they do it quietly, you never notice and think they are 100% cooperative. They are fucked either way).

grandalfOP12y ago

You are talking about a group of people mostly from places like EFF, Creative Commons, and other wonderful orgs. They do it because they want to make the world better, and because it's the right thing to do. Maybe you are too cynical and jaded to do something like that, but they aren't. Your opinions have zero basis in fact.

There is a difference between the people Google has employed to do the work and the corporate strategy behind the work. I have no doubt that the people you describe are truly passionate and dedicated.

But you don't see Google funding advocacy groups for initiatives that don't have a corresponding corporate benefit. Google's evolving stance on net neutrality is a case in point. An analogy would be a housing development firm supporting advocacy of home loans for the poor.

magicalist12y ago

> But you don't see Google funding advocacy groups for initiatives that don't have a corresponding corporate benefit.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2190617/Googles-Legaliz...

DannyBee12y ago

"There is a difference between the people Google has employed to do the work and the corporate strategy behind the work. I have no doubt that the people you describe are truly passionate and dedicated."

Of course there is difference, but you haven't explained what evidence you have that this it the corporate strategy. I actually know the corporate strategy, and i'm stating for a fact it's not as self-interested as you think. You don't have to believe me of course, and I'm not crazy enough to claim google doesn't have interests, but you present it as a very cynical 100% self-interested thing and it's simply not.

"But you don't see Google funding advocacy groups for initiatives that don't have a corresponding corporate benefit."

???? I think you are confused about what google funds.

What is your source of info? Press releases? Have you considered that maybe they don't let press releases happen because they just want the org to succeed, rather than being cynical and self-interested and trying to get credit, and that's why you don't know about it?

I personally helped fund opening of of polling location data (IE getting states to let us tell us where people vote so we could help people find their polling places). https://votinginfoproject.org/ There are now other partners, but Google created it, and funded it, as a separate org.

This was done for no other reason that I felt this was data that should be open, and it was completely ridiculous that you needed to pay various providers (many many figures) in order to get data on telling people where to vote.

This project was entirely altruistic - people were often confused by the info they had, or forgot, or something else. I wanted to solve this problem. There was no money, ads, or anything involved.

My group also funds the software freedom law center, software freedom conservancy, osu labs, etc. Not just open source either.

We fund many millions of dollars to organizations because it's the right thing to do and the orgs are fighting for the right things. Policy does the same. Of course, they do some advocacy and lobbying. But not all or even most of it has any direct corporate benefit.

In DC alone, Google funds a lot of dc related homeless and other advocacy organizations. Do you think Google has designs on ads for homeless people?

So when you say "But you don't see Google funding advocacy groups for initiatives that don't have a corresponding corporate benefit.", it would be more correct to say You don't see. And by "You don't see", that's often because Google doesn't put out press about it, because that's not the point. That would be self interested on Google's part. The point is to help the org.

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