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"It's not misleading. " Of course it is. People are not the companies they work for. Period. " Many of the donations are from top ranking Googlers like Eric Sc

"It's not misleading. " Of course it is. People are not the companies they work for. Period. " Many of the donations are from top ranking Googlers like Eric Schmidt who directly interact with these politicians in a business sense." "many". Opensecrets lists 503 unique people identified as googlers donating. I don't believe you have any reasonable argument that there are 503 top ranking googlers who interact directly with these politicians in a business sense. I think you can argue maybe 1-2% of them are. So 98% of them somehow don't fall into what you consider "many of the donations". That doesn't seem like many to me. "Unsurprisingly, almost all pro-Google legislation is sponsored by the same Congresspeople who have received the largest donations from Googlers." What is "pro-google"? Who are "the same congresspeople"? Can you give specific examples of pro-google legislation and congresspeople who have repeatedly passed them, where there largest donations were from google? I see a tremendous amount of handwaving in your comment, but pretty much no real data.

nitrogen 10y ago
It's not misleading. " Of course it is. People are not the companies they work for. Period. Did you read the leaked Sony email where one exec was hounding all the other execs to make large donations to a particular politician?
- DannyBee 10y ago
  Again, there are 503 donators. There are not 503 execs at Google.
ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Have you met a significant number of Googlers? Pretty sure they bleed the full spectrum of Google's logo colors. I'd absolutely say Googlers are the company they work for. I'd argue that while perhaps 1-2% of those donors may be interacting with those politicians directly, that 1-2%, being founders, chairmen, SVPs, etc. are probably the lion's share of the actual money donated, given their higher compensation. (And as I mentioned above, it's quite popular at Google to give equity as part of employees' compensation packages, meaning they have a strong incentive to act in the company's interest, even when donating politically or voting.) And to be clear, federal law mandates donors disclose their employers for a reason. And OpenSecrets explains how and why they use this information: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/include/contribmethod_pop.php http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/include/contribmethod... Anna Eshoo is an excellent example of a paid Google representative: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=2014&type=I&cid=N00007335&newMem=N http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=201... Here's one example: (Lofgren is paid by Google as well.) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/anna-eshoo-zoe-lofgren-google_n_2160994.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/anna-eshoo-zoe-lofg... But my favorite is this one, where 12 members of Congress, all paid by Google, act as lobbyists towards a foreign government on their behalf. Lead by Eshoo: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/us-lawmakers-ask-europe-not-to-break-up-google/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/us-lawmakers-ask-...
- tptacek 10y ago
  Yes, 'DannyBee has met a significant number of Googlers.
- DannyBee 10y ago
  So, uh, yeah, i'm a googler, met a lot of them :) "I'd argue that while perhaps 1-2% of those donors may be interacting with those politicians directly, that 1-2%, being founders, chairmen, SVPs, etc. are probably the lion's share of the actual money donated, given their higher compensation." This simply does not jive in any way with the amounts listed on opensecrets. You don't have to argue, either, the data is right there, and it does not support this claim. "Anna Eshoo is an excellent example of a paid Google representative: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=201.. http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=201.... Here's one example: (Lofgren is paid by Google as well.) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/anna-eshoo-zoe-lofg..." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/anna-eshoo-zoe-lofg... Both of these are literally the representatives for Google's district, and more importantly, tens of thousands of Google employee's district. They are supposed to be representing what their constituents want, including Google, and Google employees. Let's ignore that though. Your claim, that they are a mainly "paid google represenatives" is not even supported by the data you cite: "Raised: $1,509,756" "Donations from Google Inc Total: $34,550 Employees: $24,550 PAC: $10,000" That's 2.4%. So your claim that this is a representative paid for and bought, because Google employees donated 1.7% of their total campaign take, and the Google company PAC donated 0.7%? This is pretty laughable. Even worse for your argument, literally the line below it shows that Stanford employees donated more to her campaign than Google employees. "Stanford University: Total: $25,200 Employees: $25,200 " Stanford has 1/5th the number of employees as Google! So by your logic, i'm guessing she's bought and paid for by Stanford, by a factor of 5 more than she's bought and paid for by Google?
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    Heh, had a feeling you were, couldn't prove it fron the username alone. Her constituents also include even more people Google has ruined the lives of or put out on the street. But they don't pay her the way Googlers do. As a Googler, you may lack the perspective to evaluate Google's behavior fairly. Presumably, you get paid drastically more by Google than Anna Eshoo. As to my point about Googlers being pretty much the same as Google direct, here you are defending their investment in Congress.

nitrogen 10y ago

It's not misleading. " Of course it is. People are not the companies they work for. Period. Did you read the leaked Sony email where one exec was hounding all the other execs to make large donations to a particular politician?

DannyBee 10y ago
Again, there are 503 donators. There are not 503 execs at Google.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago

Have you met a significant number of Googlers? Pretty sure they bleed the full spectrum of Google's logo colors. I'd absolutely say Googlers are the company they work for. I'd argue that while perhaps 1-2% of those donors may be interacting with those politicians directly, that 1-2%, being founders, chairmen, SVPs, etc. are probably the lion's share of the actual money donated, given their higher compensation. (And as I mentioned above, it's quite popular at Google to give equity as part of employees' compensation packages, meaning they have a strong incentive to act in the company's interest, even when donating politically or voting.) And to be clear, federal law mandates donors disclose their employers for a reason. And OpenSecrets explains how and why they use this information: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/include/contribmethod_pop.php http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/include/contribmethod... Anna Eshoo is an excellent example of a paid Google representative: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=2014&type=I&cid=N00007335&newMem=N http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=201... Here's one example: (Lofgren is paid by Google as well.) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/anna-eshoo-zoe-lofgren-google_n_2160994.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/anna-eshoo-zoe-lofg... But my favorite is this one, where 12 members of Congress, all paid by Google, act as lobbyists towards a foreign government on their behalf. Lead by Eshoo: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/us-lawmakers-ask-europe-not-to-break-up-google/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/us-lawmakers-ask-...

tptacek 10y ago
Yes, 'DannyBee has met a significant number of Googlers.
DannyBee 10y ago
So, uh, yeah, i'm a googler, met a lot of them :) "I'd argue that while perhaps 1-2% of those donors may be interacting with those politicians directly, that 1-2%, being founders, chairmen, SVPs, etc. are probably the lion's share of the actual money donated, given their higher compensation." This simply does not jive in any way with the amounts listed on opensecrets. You don't have to argue, either, the data is right there, and it does not support this claim. "Anna Eshoo is an excellent example of a paid Google representative: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=201.. http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=201.... Here's one example: (Lofgren is paid by Google as well.) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/anna-eshoo-zoe-lofg..." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/anna-eshoo-zoe-lofg... Both of these are literally the representatives for Google's district, and more importantly, tens of thousands of Google employee's district. They are supposed to be representing what their constituents want, including Google, and Google employees. Let's ignore that though. Your claim, that they are a mainly "paid google represenatives" is not even supported by the data you cite: "Raised: $1,509,756" "Donations from Google Inc Total: $34,550 Employees: $24,550 PAC: $10,000" That's 2.4%. So your claim that this is a representative paid for and bought, because Google employees donated 1.7% of their total campaign take, and the Google company PAC donated 0.7%? This is pretty laughable. Even worse for your argument, literally the line below it shows that Stanford employees donated more to her campaign than Google employees. "Stanford University: Total: $25,200 Employees: $25,200 " Stanford has 1/5th the number of employees as Google! So by your logic, i'm guessing she's bought and paid for by Stanford, by a factor of 5 more than she's bought and paid for by Google?
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  Heh, had a feeling you were, couldn't prove it fron the username alone. Her constituents also include even more people Google has ruined the lives of or put out on the street. But they don't pay her the way Googlers do. As a Googler, you may lack the perspective to evaluate Google's behavior fairly. Presumably, you get paid drastically more by Google than Anna Eshoo. As to my point about Googlers being pretty much the same as Google direct, here you are defending their investment in Congress.