15 ms·

Google, in Post-Obama Era, Aggressively Woos Republicans

131 points by Futurebot 10y ago

justcommenting 10y ago
Turncoats.
protomyth 10y ago
This is probably going to be a hard problem for a lot of companies. Spending quite a lot of money on Democrats and little on Republicans looked like a good strategy given the polling, but now they have to deal with a office holder that is not the least concerned with building bridges and has a bit of vengeful streak. Not to mention all the contacts they have built up in the permanent staff might not be there as long as normal[1]. The typical hire former government workers to lobby current government might also be in danger if the President goes through with his anti-lobbyist rule changes. This is actually a big deal for a lot of people, because these permanent employees are a lot of organization's touchstones that cross administrations and party lines. I would advice Google to have a small talk with their doodle team to not rock the boat this year. That might be a signal on how aggressive they really are. 1) http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/politics/top-state-department-officials-asked-to-leave-by-trump-administration/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/politics/top-state-department-...
- leesalminen 10y ago
  > The typical hire former government workers to lobby current government might also be in danger if the President goes through with his anti-lobbyist rule changes. This is one thing that I'm really looking forward to.
  - abraves10001 10y ago
    I mean I understand that we don't want stagnation of ideas and certain sects continuously ruling government. However, the reason that they are lobbyists is because they are generally experts on the subjects, in no small part due to their government experience. Removing all former government workers as lobbyists a blanket move is heavy-handed and poorly thought out.
    - protomyth 10y ago
      Your version sounds good, but that's not the majority of what happens. They are lobbyists because they know people and its often a cushy, legal payoff for employees who helped the company secure and manage contracts while in government service. The most common reward is as an employee hire after they retire from government services, but the lobbyists often have their origin in the same process.
      - abraves10001 10y ago
        I don't disagree. My statement sounded far too overarching. Obviously, a lot of jobs are handouts in form of repayment. I don't think this should be encouraged but I don't think a law banning former federal employees is going to diminish the numerous concerns that lobbying brings up and potentially diminishes the quality of people advising current government.
        protomyth 10y ago
        I got your meaning (and think the down voting on your original comment is a bit harsh), but the pendulum is probably due to swing the other way, hard. I really don't know what a good balance point is. I have heard a 5 or 7 year ban bandied about, and maybe something time-based is the answer. I think until it goes to a total ban we won't find the true balance point.
        leesalminen 10y ago
        The pendulum anaolgy is an excellent way of describing how politics in this country works. I've used it often over the past several weeks. One option would be to limit how long someone can work for a lobbying organization (instead of how long must wait before lobbying after government service). What if we restored the importance of civic duty in our society? Top talent could be incentivized to work for the government for non financial reasons. I don't think anyone knows the answer to this problem (yet), but it is a large problem worth solving. Personally, I do feel strongly about civic duty. But after having (briefly) worked on government contracts I found an incredible amount of waste, cronyism and general ineptitude to turn me off. So I joined the software startup world instead ;).
  - pavlov 10y ago
    Trump's proposal is a five-year ban on becoming a registered lobbyist after leaving a government job. This sounds good on paper -- but the more likely reality is that it will simply lead to lobbying becoming more covert, as former government employees working on behalf of corporations won't register as lobbyists. It's also hard to believe that the Trump administration would do much to rein in backroom deals, considering the President himself hasn't released his tax returns nor taken any credible steps to solve the massive conflicts of interest posed by his holdings.
    - dahdum 10y ago
      "but the more likely reality is that it will simply lead to lobbying becoming more covert, as former government employees working on behalf of corporations won't register as lobbyists." Even if it's not 100% effective, won't this significantly reduce this behavior? Certainly adds risk to the equation. Many of his policies are questionable, but this one always sounded pretty good to me.
    - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
      > This sounds good on paper -- but the more likely reality is that it will simply lead to lobbying becoming more covert, as former government employees working on behalf of corporations won't register as lobbyists. And then they'll be breaking the law. Pushing the practice underground will make it less effective and less common. The appearance of propriety goes a long way toward convincing people that there isn't enough profit in being improper. > It's also hard to believe that the Trump administration would do much to rein in backroom deals, considering the President himself hasn't released his tax returns nor taken any credible steps to solve the massive conflicts of interest posed by his holdings. I don't understand why people continue to revisit things like this when there are so many legitimate problems with Trump. His tax returns are going to tell you how much money he made and how much tax he paid. How does that help you? It's bike shedding. And the conflicts of interest are inherently unavoidable. Even if he put every cent of his money in a blind trust (which is obviously expensive if the assets are illiquid real estate holdings), what about his family's assets? What about his business partners? The only reason anyone cares about this is the appearance of impropriety. If that matters in this case then why not in the other?
- kyrra 10y ago
  Google as a company gives equally between the 2 parties[0] (via it's PAC(s)). Google employees that donated to candidates or various government entities definitely leans towards the democrat side[1]. So the company knows to hedge its bets and give equally both ways. (Most large companies do this, like Comcast[2]). [0] https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2016&cmte=C00428623 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2016&cmte... [1] https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000067823&cycle=2016 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000067823&c... [2] https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2016&cmte=C00248716 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2016&cmte...
  - protomyth 10y ago
    "The total of contributions to candidates from Alphabet Inc individuals is 2 times larger than contributions from PACs" I'm pretty sure they can do the sums and figure it out. Plus, they already have had a lot of news about claims of unfairness of searches. That employee number is going to influence things. I would be a bit more worried if I was Apple though http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/apple-wont-aid-gop-convention-over-trump-224513 http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/apple-wont-aid-gop-con...
  - tyingq 10y ago
    It's not just the money, though...it's the relationship, time, favors, etc. There's stuff like this organization: https://thegroundwork.com/ https://thegroundwork.com/ that Eric Schmidt set up for Hillary.
  - mtgx 10y ago
    The problem is this shouldn't even be a thing. It shouldn't be "Google" that gives money to politicians. It should be individuals. And the sums should be capped at $200 (local/Congress elections) to $500 (presidential elections). Even "lobbying" shouldn't exist. There should only be public hearings. I don't want some other party to whisper secret stuff to my politician. I want it all on the record.
    - mac01021 10y ago
- TorKlingberg 10y ago
  I wonder if Google employees will revolt, if the company does as you suggest and order them to not say or do anything that might anger Trump.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    does as you suggest and order them to not say or do anything that might anger Trump. Could you clue me in on where I said that? If you mean my doodle comment, then that's really not about Trump per se, its more about lack of attention to things his base cares about and might lead to problem.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      I would advice Google to have a small talk with their doodle team to not rock the boat this year certainly comes off as 'keep your head down' even though you may not have intended it that way. I mean, what sort of things do you think they should avoid that might rock the boat?
      - protomyth 10y ago
        Avoid? No, it not avoidance that stirs the pot, it has been what holidays they don't acknowledge.
  - camus2 10y ago
    > I wonder if Google employees will revolt what would be intended result? to go against orders from the upper management?
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    If Google employees were going to revolt, they'd have done so already. Many have left on various grounds, but those that are left either have heavily bought into what Google's marketing team is selling about the mission, or simply don't care that they work for a company that has such a corrupt influence in government. A Googler I follow recently posted an angry social post about the recent Congressional proposal to gimp the Office of Congressional Ethics, and how that was "not normal" and such. I pointed out that Bob Goodlatte, the congressman who introduced it, was bought and paid for by Google, and has acted as a lobbyist for Google while supposedly serving the public. He largely dismissed the point, but I suggested that rather than blame Trump, who hadn't even been inaugurated yet, that he should maybe ask his employer to stop bankrolling this guy. He largely just dismissed my point and then closed the comments. I have no doubt Google's executives have drastically different social and moral views than their rank and file engineers, but they don't seem too inclined to do anything about it.
- mudil 10y ago
  "now they have to deal with a office holder that is not the least concerned with building bridges and has a bit of vengeful streak" Where is evidence for that? As a matter of fact, during the post election period Trump extended olive branches to his opponents and critics, such as Romney, Cruz, Bushes, etc.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    Olive branch to Romney? He dragged him through the press like a trained dog. He said some nice things about the Clintons, but I haven't seen a lot of bridge building or olive branches. I'm more than willing to give him a chance, and I really want him to do well, but I don't think he suffers opponents gladly.
    - tomcam 10y ago
      What about the day-long meeting he had with Romney?
      - protomyth 10y ago
        I did not see Romney on the list of Appointees. It was a nice show with a lot of backchannel negative comments to the conservative press by Trump's staff.
- tomcam 10y ago
  Please tell me how President Obama attempted to build bridges with Republicans.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure I didn't mention President Obama in my comment, so why ask me that question? Are you probing for what party I support and trying to draw some equivalence?
wmeredith 10y ago
Gross. I thought a Google in bed with the Obama administration was unsettling. One in bed with the GOP and Trump is terrifying. Google has the keys to the muslim registry, and every other kind of registry you could imagine in every country it operates.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- rudolf0 10y ago
  I doubt Google or any other SV corporation would ever agree to help with a Muslim registry. Even if somehow the top leadership of such a company were to agree (which I doubt), you'd see defections, sabotage, and heavy leaks almost immediately.
  - arebop 10y ago
    Palantir being the exception that proves the rule.
    - guelo 10y ago
      Doubt they're the only one. For all the talk of noble ideals in SV the only real principle is money.
      - tyingq 10y ago
        Facebook and others are, at the very least, aware of the purpose behind those various "Quizzes" that are posted using their advertising platforms. Edit: A reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/the-secret-agenda-of-a-facebook-quiz.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/the-secret-agenda...
    - brian-armstrong 10y ago
      Pedantic aside: This isn't the right way to use this phrase. The exception that proves the rule is the data point that demonstrates that it makes sense to call it a rule and not just something which is always true. 'Dogs bark' is proven a rule by cats meowing, not by a dog that doesn't bark
timeisapear 10y ago
Shocked? It's called lobbying--it's been around for decades.
- mtgx 10y ago
  So has bribery. It doesn't mean people shouldn't still be outraged when it happens.
alphonsegaston 10y ago
I'm not optimistic, but I hope that the Trump era finally puts an end to the illusions people had about tech giants as a vehicle for social progress. We're stepping into an era of extreme inequality, authoritarianism, and intolerance, all borne on the back of their rise. They may not be the origin of these trends, but they certainly rode them to tremendous wealth without anything besides the most superficial concerns for their social consequences.
- r00fus 10y ago
  You're blaming tech giants for the rise in inequality, authoritarianism and intolerance? It's like blaming Apple or Spotify that your favorite artists aren't as good as they used to be. Fine, be happy the veil is off (tech giants are corporations and when push comes to shove are about money), but honestly you need to look at the petroleum industry, security & prison industrial complexes and their bought politicians to see the worst.
  - dgfgfdagasdfgfa 10y ago
    > Fine, be happy the veil is off (tech giants are corporations and when push comes to shove are about money), but honestly you need to look at the petroleum industry, security & prison industrial complexes and their bought politicians to see the worst. I must admit, the difference is hard for me to see. Though the tech companies may not be getting rich directly off the backs of the poor, they are just as destructive in funneling large sums of money to a subset of society. Guess who actually clicks on ads? Guess who allows for advertising loans up to 35% APR? That definitely falls within usury/payday/predatory loan range. The 36% restriction would only exist because people actively fall for those scams, and it also indicates Google is ok with people falling for the 35% rate. I also remember them recommending a payday loan company, but I can't find the link. TL;DR Google is rich off people who can't tell they're being scammed.
    - mahyarm 10y ago
      That is like blaming commercial landlords for letting payday loan companies / <insert-business-I-don't-like-here> rent space to these people or letting telecoms let criminals communicate on their networks. When your infrastructure, the good and the bad will use it and you don't want to be in the job of determining who is good or bad.
hackuser 10y ago
Thank goodness the Republicans and Trump believe in the free market and not government interference in business.
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
The internet as we know it was born in a very unique time in history. Two ideologies feuded for most of a century, and one collapsed at the same time that the other created the internet. The side that created the internet believed that their way of life, government, business, and so on would become the standard around the world, the "end of history." We believed that the world would stitch itself together and become gradually more liberal and tolerant of the many cultures on this planet. The internet and the collapse of the Soviet Union made that narrative believable, even perhaps inevitable. As a result, we have a very skewed idea of what the internet is or should be. It is no coincidence that the domain for 99% of sites we use is ".com." The truth is, corporations for decades have become more powerful and detached from their geopolitical circumstances. The subtleties of how the world works is of little relevance to McDonald's as long as they can sell more hamburgers. Corporations want to protect themselves from risk so they can continue to amass profits. Therefore, the newfound genuflecting to the GOP should be of no surprise. Google ultimately has a mission to itself and its shareholders first. For a company whose product is its ability to amass information, there is little to be gained in promoting social or economic causes that do not benefit the corporation. Yes, it does suck that the utopian dreams of Silicon Valley have divorced themselves from the liberal idealism of Northern California's Vietnam-era glory days, but that is why I left. If you consider yourself liberal and you work for any of these companies that are aggressively courting Republicans, I would be very interested in hearing your perspective.
- jfoutz 10y ago
  > It is no coincidence that the domain for 99% of sites we use is ".com." I sort of agree. Actually getting a .gov, .mil, .edu was pretty tough. I vaguely remember people being quite prickly about .net, and a little fussy about.org
mrtksn 10y ago
Depending on how Protectionist Trump actually becomes, global companies like Google and Facebook may have huge challenges. Russia and China already had the idea of local alternatives and the EU was pushing for data protection for a while. Governments might decide that it is not good idea give that much information about their population to the USA and maybe we will see the end of truly global companies. It might be good for Apple though, as with it's strict data collection limitations.
- TallGuyShort 10y ago
  I think you mean, "the end of truly global companies in the U.S." I firmly believe a protectionist stance here is hurting the US as much as anyone else.
  - mrtksn 10y ago
    The end of the truly global companies in the US or anywhere. Especially the companies relying on mass adoption and data collection will probably be forced to scale back and if feasible run separate Data centres in individual countries and be strictly regulated.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Maybe...VK and RenRen are definitively the Facebooks of Russia and China, respectively, but I doubt you'll see widespread adoption of a "Facebook of Senegal" or Kiribati or Ecuador anytime soon. I couldn't even imagine an analogue to Facebook within the West. Personally, I think the distribution is a good thing. It's not as if Facebook is creating better people. It's more likely that social networks are exacerbating biases, and so a global social network only creates an easier subset of people to manipulate. Global capitalism hasn't exactly been a boon to humanity. Cheaper stuff comes at human costs, whether it's sugar or cotton or diamonds or iPhones. If a global institution is to better humanity, I wouldn't bet on it taking the form of a for-profit corporation.
solotronics 10y ago
the very same Google that was funded with CIA money? I think they are more in line with the deep state than either of the two parties
curt15 10y ago
They need to get out in front of Oracle, which is probably the Silcon Valley company least associated with the hippie liberal stereotype and thus most likely to get Trump's ear if they want to make life hard for their competitors.
- redthrowaway 10y ago
  Pretty sure any company with Thiel on its board is sitting pretty.
AnthonyMouse 10y ago
It's January. Mark this as "least surprising story of 2017" and it will still be true at the end of the year. Political parties sell themselves to voters as "be on our team". The other team wants to rape women or murder babies, don't vote for them. Corporations vote with money instead of with votes. When you vote with votes and the other guy wins, you lose. When you vote with money and you pay both sides, you always win. Google doesn't pay Republicans because they hate women or want to Build A Wall, they pay Republicans because Republicans are now in a position to destroy network neutrality, they don't want that to happen, and politicians don't listen to corporations who don't pay them. Parties constrained by a system do what you would expect them to. If you don't like it you have to change the system.
- protomyth 10y ago
  > The other team wants to rape women or murder babies, don't vote for them. quite literally in the election of 1800 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_zTN4BXvYI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_zTN4BXvYI
notpc 10y ago
I'm going to very amused as Google's "don't be evil" facade comes crumbling down, having lost their revolving door with the US government and protection from antitrust enforcement. Google has a very small business, search & ads, that basically prints money. They then spend almost all of that money on unprofitable operations that crush competition by 1) setting the price-point for many services at free, 2) intercepting customers (e.g. Google Flight and Hotel bookings at the top of search results), and 3) poaching all of the best talent and wasting it away on these terrible side businesses.
tills13 10y ago
> We're stepping into an era of extreme inequality, authoritarianism, and intolerance, all borne on the back of their rise what the hell are you on about?
- dang 10y ago
  Please don't comment like this here, regardless of how wrong someone is. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13503315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13503315 and marked it off-topic.
andrewclunn 10y ago
So long as the government contracts and regulatory favoritism are such a big part of picking winners and losers you can bet this sort of thing will happen. Now we have a President who knows he won in spite of many of these big money interests (who overwhelmingly backed Clinton). That people here are complaining about the companies for now acting in their own self preservation, while also condemning money in politics is just... well it's the sort of double think that is best explained by political tribalism.
khana 10y ago
Why cater to lobbyists? Because Google aka Alphabet (ominous warning in the back of one's head) is yuuuge! GTFOH with that dog and pony shit. usurp. disrupt.
kapauldo 10y ago
There arent a lot of republican engineers so this is probably not a big problem for google.
PopsiclePete 10y ago
Democrats have been on an incredible losing streak in the past 8 years. Lost the Presidency, House, Senate, Supreme Court, most Governor seats....As a CEO, you'd have to be pretty crazy to continue supporting the losing side, right?
beebeebush 10y ago
Google hides, suppress, spy, track & blocks users and STILL people are suprised of them ? Cmon people please wakeup and open your eyes.
anigbrowl 10y ago
So much for 'don't be evil,' although that was always more of an ideal than an actual policy guide.
tn13 10y ago
It is weird to begin with that Google would put all their eggs into one basket. Silicon Valley would have looked all idiotic but for Mr. Thiel who invested in Trump.
general_ai 10y ago
I can't believe they're stupid enough to think that Trump is a Republican. He's neither. Both parties shat all over him during his entire campaign, so he owes them not just nothing, but less than nothing, hence the promise to institute the congressional term limits and anti-lobbying laws. And as everyone discovered over the last week (much to everyone's surprise), Trump is the first politician in history that will actually fulfill his campaign promises. There are a lot of really old geezers in Congress, especially on the Republican side, which won't like term limits one bit, so it'll require some negotiating skill to shove it down their throats. I hope Trump actually manages to pull this off in a way that's not easy to undo for president Michelle Obama in 2024.
- macintux 10y ago
  I'm waiting for Trump to fulfill his campaign promise to release his taxes once the audit is over.
- raldi 10y ago
  > Both parties shat all over him during his entire campaign, so he owes them not just nothing, but less than nothing, hence the promise to institute the congressional term limits and anti-lobbying laws. How will he pass laws without the support of at least 50% of Congress?
  - general_ai 10y ago
    He will get the support through amazing feats of negotiation.
    - raldi 10y ago
      Then how can you say "he owes them nothing"? If he wants to get any laws passed, he'll need to give them something.
      - general_ai 10y ago
        He can play them against Democrats. In fact I bet he will have to. He owes no allegiance to anyone but people who can re-elect him in 2020 if they think he did a good job. He understands that.
brightsize 10y ago
I know of at least one subset of a top-tier federal agency that uses Google's .gov services, this[0] I would assume. I wonder what the size of .gov business is for Google and to what extent (vs anti-trust concerns) it factors-in to making nice with the new regime? [0] https://gsuite.google.com/industries/government/ https://gsuite.google.com/industries/government/
- niels_olson 10y ago
  You may be interested in the FedRAMP marketplace: https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#/products?status=FedRAMP%20Ready&sort=productName https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#/products?status=FedRAMP%20...
aisofteng 10y ago
This isn't an "about face" - google is continuing to work with the White House, just as it has so far.

131 points by Futurebot 10y ago

Turncoats.

This is probably going to be a hard problem for a lot of companies. Spending quite a lot of money on Democrats and little on Republicans looked like a good strategy given the polling, but now they have to deal with a office holder that is not the least concerned with building bridges and has a bit of vengeful streak. Not to mention all the contacts they have built up in the permanent staff might not be there as long as normal[1]. The typical hire former government workers to lobby current government might also be in danger if the President goes through with his anti-lobbyist rule changes. This is actually a big deal for a lot of people, because these permanent employees are a lot of organization's touchstones that cross administrations and party lines. I would advice Google to have a small talk with their doodle team to not rock the boat this year. That might be a signal on how aggressive they really are. 1) http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/politics/top-state-department-officials-asked-to-leave-by-trump-administration/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/politics/top-state-department-...

leesalminen 10y ago
> The typical hire former government workers to lobby current government might also be in danger if the President goes through with his anti-lobbyist rule changes. This is one thing that I'm really looking forward to.
- abraves10001 10y ago
  I mean I understand that we don't want stagnation of ideas and certain sects continuously ruling government. However, the reason that they are lobbyists is because they are generally experts on the subjects, in no small part due to their government experience. Removing all former government workers as lobbyists a blanket move is heavy-handed and poorly thought out.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    Your version sounds good, but that's not the majority of what happens. They are lobbyists because they know people and its often a cushy, legal payoff for employees who helped the company secure and manage contracts while in government service. The most common reward is as an employee hire after they retire from government services, but the lobbyists often have their origin in the same process.
    - abraves10001 10y ago
      I don't disagree. My statement sounded far too overarching. Obviously, a lot of jobs are handouts in form of repayment. I don't think this should be encouraged but I don't think a law banning former federal employees is going to diminish the numerous concerns that lobbying brings up and potentially diminishes the quality of people advising current government.
      - protomyth 10y ago
        I got your meaning (and think the down voting on your original comment is a bit harsh), but the pendulum is probably due to swing the other way, hard. I really don't know what a good balance point is. I have heard a 5 or 7 year ban bandied about, and maybe something time-based is the answer. I think until it goes to a total ban we won't find the true balance point.
        leesalminen 10y ago
        The pendulum anaolgy is an excellent way of describing how politics in this country works. I've used it often over the past several weeks. One option would be to limit how long someone can work for a lobbying organization (instead of how long must wait before lobbying after government service). What if we restored the importance of civic duty in our society? Top talent could be incentivized to work for the government for non financial reasons. I don't think anyone knows the answer to this problem (yet), but it is a large problem worth solving. Personally, I do feel strongly about civic duty. But after having (briefly) worked on government contracts I found an incredible amount of waste, cronyism and general ineptitude to turn me off. So I joined the software startup world instead ;).
- pavlov 10y ago
  Trump's proposal is a five-year ban on becoming a registered lobbyist after leaving a government job. This sounds good on paper -- but the more likely reality is that it will simply lead to lobbying becoming more covert, as former government employees working on behalf of corporations won't register as lobbyists. It's also hard to believe that the Trump administration would do much to rein in backroom deals, considering the President himself hasn't released his tax returns nor taken any credible steps to solve the massive conflicts of interest posed by his holdings.
  - dahdum 10y ago
    "but the more likely reality is that it will simply lead to lobbying becoming more covert, as former government employees working on behalf of corporations won't register as lobbyists." Even if it's not 100% effective, won't this significantly reduce this behavior? Certainly adds risk to the equation. Many of his policies are questionable, but this one always sounded pretty good to me.
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    > This sounds good on paper -- but the more likely reality is that it will simply lead to lobbying becoming more covert, as former government employees working on behalf of corporations won't register as lobbyists. And then they'll be breaking the law. Pushing the practice underground will make it less effective and less common. The appearance of propriety goes a long way toward convincing people that there isn't enough profit in being improper. > It's also hard to believe that the Trump administration would do much to rein in backroom deals, considering the President himself hasn't released his tax returns nor taken any credible steps to solve the massive conflicts of interest posed by his holdings. I don't understand why people continue to revisit things like this when there are so many legitimate problems with Trump. His tax returns are going to tell you how much money he made and how much tax he paid. How does that help you? It's bike shedding. And the conflicts of interest are inherently unavoidable. Even if he put every cent of his money in a blind trust (which is obviously expensive if the assets are illiquid real estate holdings), what about his family's assets? What about his business partners? The only reason anyone cares about this is the appearance of impropriety. If that matters in this case then why not in the other?
kyrra 10y ago
Google as a company gives equally between the 2 parties[0] (via it's PAC(s)). Google employees that donated to candidates or various government entities definitely leans towards the democrat side[1]. So the company knows to hedge its bets and give equally both ways. (Most large companies do this, like Comcast[2]). [0] https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2016&cmte=C00428623 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2016&cmte... [1] https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000067823&cycle=2016 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000067823&c... [2] https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2016&cmte=C00248716 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2016&cmte...
- protomyth 10y ago
  "The total of contributions to candidates from Alphabet Inc individuals is 2 times larger than contributions from PACs" I'm pretty sure they can do the sums and figure it out. Plus, they already have had a lot of news about claims of unfairness of searches. That employee number is going to influence things. I would be a bit more worried if I was Apple though http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/apple-wont-aid-gop-convention-over-trump-224513 http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/apple-wont-aid-gop-con...
- tyingq 10y ago
  It's not just the money, though...it's the relationship, time, favors, etc. There's stuff like this organization: https://thegroundwork.com/ https://thegroundwork.com/ that Eric Schmidt set up for Hillary.
- mtgx 10y ago
  The problem is this shouldn't even be a thing. It shouldn't be "Google" that gives money to politicians. It should be individuals. And the sums should be capped at $200 (local/Congress elections) to $500 (presidential elections). Even "lobbying" shouldn't exist. There should only be public hearings. I don't want some other party to whisper secret stuff to my politician. I want it all on the record.
  - mac01021 10y ago
TorKlingberg 10y ago
I wonder if Google employees will revolt, if the company does as you suggest and order them to not say or do anything that might anger Trump.
- protomyth 10y ago
  does as you suggest and order them to not say or do anything that might anger Trump. Could you clue me in on where I said that? If you mean my doodle comment, then that's really not about Trump per se, its more about lack of attention to things his base cares about and might lead to problem.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    I would advice Google to have a small talk with their doodle team to not rock the boat this year certainly comes off as 'keep your head down' even though you may not have intended it that way. I mean, what sort of things do you think they should avoid that might rock the boat?
    - protomyth 10y ago
      Avoid? No, it not avoidance that stirs the pot, it has been what holidays they don't acknowledge.
- camus2 10y ago
  > I wonder if Google employees will revolt what would be intended result? to go against orders from the upper management?
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  If Google employees were going to revolt, they'd have done so already. Many have left on various grounds, but those that are left either have heavily bought into what Google's marketing team is selling about the mission, or simply don't care that they work for a company that has such a corrupt influence in government. A Googler I follow recently posted an angry social post about the recent Congressional proposal to gimp the Office of Congressional Ethics, and how that was "not normal" and such. I pointed out that Bob Goodlatte, the congressman who introduced it, was bought and paid for by Google, and has acted as a lobbyist for Google while supposedly serving the public. He largely dismissed the point, but I suggested that rather than blame Trump, who hadn't even been inaugurated yet, that he should maybe ask his employer to stop bankrolling this guy. He largely just dismissed my point and then closed the comments. I have no doubt Google's executives have drastically different social and moral views than their rank and file engineers, but they don't seem too inclined to do anything about it.
mudil 10y ago
"now they have to deal with a office holder that is not the least concerned with building bridges and has a bit of vengeful streak" Where is evidence for that? As a matter of fact, during the post election period Trump extended olive branches to his opponents and critics, such as Romney, Cruz, Bushes, etc.
- protomyth 10y ago
  Olive branch to Romney? He dragged him through the press like a trained dog. He said some nice things about the Clintons, but I haven't seen a lot of bridge building or olive branches. I'm more than willing to give him a chance, and I really want him to do well, but I don't think he suffers opponents gladly.
  - tomcam 10y ago
    What about the day-long meeting he had with Romney?
    - protomyth 10y ago
      I did not see Romney on the list of Appointees. It was a nice show with a lot of backchannel negative comments to the conservative press by Trump's staff.
tomcam 10y ago
Please tell me how President Obama attempted to build bridges with Republicans.
- protomyth 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure I didn't mention President Obama in my comment, so why ask me that question? Are you probing for what party I support and trying to draw some equivalence?

wmeredith 10y ago

Gross. I thought a Google in bed with the Obama administration was unsettling. One in bed with the GOP and Trump is terrifying. Google has the keys to the muslim registry, and every other kind of registry you could imagine in every country it operates.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
rudolf0 10y ago
I doubt Google or any other SV corporation would ever agree to help with a Muslim registry. Even if somehow the top leadership of such a company were to agree (which I doubt), you'd see defections, sabotage, and heavy leaks almost immediately.
- arebop 10y ago
  Palantir being the exception that proves the rule.
  - guelo 10y ago
    Doubt they're the only one. For all the talk of noble ideals in SV the only real principle is money.
    - tyingq 10y ago
      Facebook and others are, at the very least, aware of the purpose behind those various "Quizzes" that are posted using their advertising platforms. Edit: A reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/the-secret-agenda-of-a-facebook-quiz.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/the-secret-agenda...
  - brian-armstrong 10y ago
    Pedantic aside: This isn't the right way to use this phrase. The exception that proves the rule is the data point that demonstrates that it makes sense to call it a rule and not just something which is always true. 'Dogs bark' is proven a rule by cats meowing, not by a dog that doesn't bark

timeisapear 10y ago

Shocked? It's called lobbying--it's been around for decades.

mtgx 10y ago
So has bribery. It doesn't mean people shouldn't still be outraged when it happens.

alphonsegaston 10y ago

I'm not optimistic, but I hope that the Trump era finally puts an end to the illusions people had about tech giants as a vehicle for social progress. We're stepping into an era of extreme inequality, authoritarianism, and intolerance, all borne on the back of their rise. They may not be the origin of these trends, but they certainly rode them to tremendous wealth without anything besides the most superficial concerns for their social consequences.

r00fus 10y ago
You're blaming tech giants for the rise in inequality, authoritarianism and intolerance? It's like blaming Apple or Spotify that your favorite artists aren't as good as they used to be. Fine, be happy the veil is off (tech giants are corporations and when push comes to shove are about money), but honestly you need to look at the petroleum industry, security & prison industrial complexes and their bought politicians to see the worst.
- dgfgfdagasdfgfa 10y ago
  > Fine, be happy the veil is off (tech giants are corporations and when push comes to shove are about money), but honestly you need to look at the petroleum industry, security & prison industrial complexes and their bought politicians to see the worst. I must admit, the difference is hard for me to see. Though the tech companies may not be getting rich directly off the backs of the poor, they are just as destructive in funneling large sums of money to a subset of society. Guess who actually clicks on ads? Guess who allows for advertising loans up to 35% APR? That definitely falls within usury/payday/predatory loan range. The 36% restriction would only exist because people actively fall for those scams, and it also indicates Google is ok with people falling for the 35% rate. I also remember them recommending a payday loan company, but I can't find the link. TL;DR Google is rich off people who can't tell they're being scammed.
  - mahyarm 10y ago
    That is like blaming commercial landlords for letting payday loan companies / <insert-business-I-don't-like-here> rent space to these people or letting telecoms let criminals communicate on their networks. When your infrastructure, the good and the bad will use it and you don't want to be in the job of determining who is good or bad.

hackuser 10y ago

Thank goodness the Republicans and Trump believe in the free market and not government interference in business.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

The internet as we know it was born in a very unique time in history. Two ideologies feuded for most of a century, and one collapsed at the same time that the other created the internet. The side that created the internet believed that their way of life, government, business, and so on would become the standard around the world, the "end of history." We believed that the world would stitch itself together and become gradually more liberal and tolerant of the many cultures on this planet. The internet and the collapse of the Soviet Union made that narrative believable, even perhaps inevitable. As a result, we have a very skewed idea of what the internet is or should be. It is no coincidence that the domain for 99% of sites we use is ".com." The truth is, corporations for decades have become more powerful and detached from their geopolitical circumstances. The subtleties of how the world works is of little relevance to McDonald's as long as they can sell more hamburgers. Corporations want to protect themselves from risk so they can continue to amass profits. Therefore, the newfound genuflecting to the GOP should be of no surprise. Google ultimately has a mission to itself and its shareholders first. For a company whose product is its ability to amass information, there is little to be gained in promoting social or economic causes that do not benefit the corporation. Yes, it does suck that the utopian dreams of Silicon Valley have divorced themselves from the liberal idealism of Northern California's Vietnam-era glory days, but that is why I left. If you consider yourself liberal and you work for any of these companies that are aggressively courting Republicans, I would be very interested in hearing your perspective.

jfoutz 10y ago
> It is no coincidence that the domain for 99% of sites we use is ".com." I sort of agree. Actually getting a .gov, .mil, .edu was pretty tough. I vaguely remember people being quite prickly about .net, and a little fussy about.org

mrtksn 10y ago

Depending on how Protectionist Trump actually becomes, global companies like Google and Facebook may have huge challenges. Russia and China already had the idea of local alternatives and the EU was pushing for data protection for a while. Governments might decide that it is not good idea give that much information about their population to the USA and maybe we will see the end of truly global companies. It might be good for Apple though, as with it's strict data collection limitations.

TallGuyShort 10y ago
I think you mean, "the end of truly global companies in the U.S." I firmly believe a protectionist stance here is hurting the US as much as anyone else.
- mrtksn 10y ago
  The end of the truly global companies in the US or anywhere. Especially the companies relying on mass adoption and data collection will probably be forced to scale back and if feasible run separate Data centres in individual countries and be strictly regulated.
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Maybe...VK and RenRen are definitively the Facebooks of Russia and China, respectively, but I doubt you'll see widespread adoption of a "Facebook of Senegal" or Kiribati or Ecuador anytime soon. I couldn't even imagine an analogue to Facebook within the West. Personally, I think the distribution is a good thing. It's not as if Facebook is creating better people. It's more likely that social networks are exacerbating biases, and so a global social network only creates an easier subset of people to manipulate. Global capitalism hasn't exactly been a boon to humanity. Cheaper stuff comes at human costs, whether it's sugar or cotton or diamonds or iPhones. If a global institution is to better humanity, I wouldn't bet on it taking the form of a for-profit corporation.

solotronics 10y ago

the very same Google that was funded with CIA money? I think they are more in line with the deep state than either of the two parties

curt15 10y ago

They need to get out in front of Oracle, which is probably the Silcon Valley company least associated with the hippie liberal stereotype and thus most likely to get Trump's ear if they want to make life hard for their competitors.

redthrowaway 10y ago
Pretty sure any company with Thiel on its board is sitting pretty.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

It's January. Mark this as "least surprising story of 2017" and it will still be true at the end of the year. Political parties sell themselves to voters as "be on our team". The other team wants to rape women or murder babies, don't vote for them. Corporations vote with money instead of with votes. When you vote with votes and the other guy wins, you lose. When you vote with money and you pay both sides, you always win. Google doesn't pay Republicans because they hate women or want to Build A Wall, they pay Republicans because Republicans are now in a position to destroy network neutrality, they don't want that to happen, and politicians don't listen to corporations who don't pay them. Parties constrained by a system do what you would expect them to. If you don't like it you have to change the system.

protomyth 10y ago
> The other team wants to rape women or murder babies, don't vote for them. quite literally in the election of 1800 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_zTN4BXvYI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_zTN4BXvYI

notpc 10y ago

I'm going to very amused as Google's "don't be evil" facade comes crumbling down, having lost their revolving door with the US government and protection from antitrust enforcement. Google has a very small business, search & ads, that basically prints money. They then spend almost all of that money on unprofitable operations that crush competition by 1) setting the price-point for many services at free, 2) intercepting customers (e.g. Google Flight and Hotel bookings at the top of search results), and 3) poaching all of the best talent and wasting it away on these terrible side businesses.

tills13 10y ago

> We're stepping into an era of extreme inequality, authoritarianism, and intolerance, all borne on the back of their rise what the hell are you on about?

dang 10y ago
Please don't comment like this here, regardless of how wrong someone is. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13503315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13503315 and marked it off-topic.

andrewclunn 10y ago

So long as the government contracts and regulatory favoritism are such a big part of picking winners and losers you can bet this sort of thing will happen. Now we have a President who knows he won in spite of many of these big money interests (who overwhelmingly backed Clinton). That people here are complaining about the companies for now acting in their own self preservation, while also condemning money in politics is just... well it's the sort of double think that is best explained by political tribalism.

khana 10y ago

Why cater to lobbyists? Because Google aka Alphabet (ominous warning in the back of one's head) is yuuuge! GTFOH with that dog and pony shit. usurp. disrupt.

kapauldo 10y ago

There arent a lot of republican engineers so this is probably not a big problem for google.

PopsiclePete 10y ago

Democrats have been on an incredible losing streak in the past 8 years. Lost the Presidency, House, Senate, Supreme Court, most Governor seats....As a CEO, you'd have to be pretty crazy to continue supporting the losing side, right?

beebeebush 10y ago

Google hides, suppress, spy, track & blocks users and STILL people are suprised of them ? Cmon people please wakeup and open your eyes.

anigbrowl 10y ago

So much for 'don't be evil,' although that was always more of an ideal than an actual policy guide.

tn13 10y ago

It is weird to begin with that Google would put all their eggs into one basket. Silicon Valley would have looked all idiotic but for Mr. Thiel who invested in Trump.

general_ai 10y ago

I can't believe they're stupid enough to think that Trump is a Republican. He's neither. Both parties shat all over him during his entire campaign, so he owes them not just nothing, but less than nothing, hence the promise to institute the congressional term limits and anti-lobbying laws. And as everyone discovered over the last week (much to everyone's surprise), Trump is the first politician in history that will actually fulfill his campaign promises. There are a lot of really old geezers in Congress, especially on the Republican side, which won't like term limits one bit, so it'll require some negotiating skill to shove it down their throats. I hope Trump actually manages to pull this off in a way that's not easy to undo for president Michelle Obama in 2024.

macintux 10y ago
I'm waiting for Trump to fulfill his campaign promise to release his taxes once the audit is over.
raldi 10y ago
> Both parties shat all over him during his entire campaign, so he owes them not just nothing, but less than nothing, hence the promise to institute the congressional term limits and anti-lobbying laws. How will he pass laws without the support of at least 50% of Congress?
- general_ai 10y ago
  He will get the support through amazing feats of negotiation.
  - raldi 10y ago
    Then how can you say "he owes them nothing"? If he wants to get any laws passed, he'll need to give them something.
    - general_ai 10y ago
      He can play them against Democrats. In fact I bet he will have to. He owes no allegiance to anyone but people who can re-elect him in 2020 if they think he did a good job. He understands that.

brightsize 10y ago

I know of at least one subset of a top-tier federal agency that uses Google's .gov services, this[0] I would assume. I wonder what the size of .gov business is for Google and to what extent (vs anti-trust concerns) it factors-in to making nice with the new regime? [0] https://gsuite.google.com/industries/government/ https://gsuite.google.com/industries/government/

niels_olson 10y ago
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aisofteng 10y ago

This isn't an "about face" - google is continuing to work with the White House, just as it has so far.