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Peter Thiel Gave Money to Attorney General Going After Google
- c3534l 9y agoOkay. That's not illegal and there's no evidence of bribery. My congressman also fought for net neutrality and I also gave him money. In fact, I gave him money because I wanted him to fight for net neutrality for me.
- joshAg 9y agoYou gave your congressman as significant an amount of money as theil did?!
- geocar 9y agoIsn't $300k like $500 to Peter Thiel?
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y agoWould that make it equivalent in the eyes of the recipient?
- joshAg 9y agoRegardless of how much it is to Thiel, the amount of the gift relative to the rest of the person's political fundraising matters. For such a significant amount questions about quid pro quo arise, and even if the quid pro quo is determined to be ethical/legal, there is still the question of whether an non-constituent should be able to influence a race to such a degree. Pretending like a gift of a few hundred thousand dollars is anything like the maximum $2,700 donation that can be made to a congressperson for the purposes influencing them is silly.
- rdtsc 9y agoYes those who have money buy political favors in US. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/07/amid-antitrust-talk-amazon-and-google-flex-lobbying-muscle/ https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/07/amid-antitrust-talk... Google has 25 lobbying firms on retainer and spends at least $15M / year on lobbying. That is more than Verizon, Monsanto and Goldman for example, just to pick a few traditional big and scary companies off the top of my head. Also speaking of Google, it has a pretty wide revolving door: "22 former White House officials moved into jobs at Google, while 31 Google executives took government jobs". It's not necessarily more un-evil or better than Monsanto for example, but many people still think of it as the cute little startup with fun colorful letters in the logo.
- estsauver 9y agoThe way I've always heard is that Google was coming up while the DOJ was tearing into Microsoft for anti trust and so was very culturally aware of the impact that government can have on the success of a company.
- maxerickson 9y agoThey took a decade to really get going with it. See the chart midway through here: https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/23/2968686/google-joins-lobbying-elite https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/23/2968686/google-joins-lobb... Before 2009 they weren't spending all that much. The company was flush with cash at least since the 2004 IPO.
- 3pt14159 9y agoMonsanto is evil for tricking farmers or for unfair business practices, not for lobbying. This is a false equivalency. Google advocates for things that are generally in the public interest and does not abuse those position as many companies of their size do.
- kogepathic 9y ago> Google advocates for things that are generally in the public interest and does not abuse those position as many companies of their size do. Yes, they do that now. What about in the future? There's no guarantee that they won't start lobbying for things which entrench their monopoly and help their business while harming consumers. Just look at Google Fiber. At one point in time it seemed they might actually disrupt incumbent providers like Comcast, but they figured it wasn't in their interests and mothballed it.
- martin_bech 9y agoNice to see billionaires doing good with their money.
- katastic 9y agoBro managed to remove Gawker from the internet. It's already a better place. Strange how people are demanding Twitter, Facebook, YouTube et al "clean up their content" but when someone does it with a lawsuit, all a sudden these toxin spewing organizations are supposed to be the "underdogs"? What's that? Oh, the world's smallest tear.
- liamtk43 9y agoAre we supposed to assume that by Thiel giving $300k to Hawley's political campaign in 2015, Thiel is behind Hawley's antitrust investigation into Google? Enough with the "click bate" titles and attenuated conclusions. Another article from a major news outlet that contains zero facts supporting its implied premise.
- kibibu 9y agoDid you miss him taking down Gawker by proxy? He has form in this space.
- flexie 9y agoThat would be a sound assumption. Why else should a Silicon Valley billionaire give 300k to someone running for attorney general in a Missouri? Is he just interested in justice being pursued in a small Midwestern state he doesn't live in, that he is neither from, nor studied in, nor has his major business interests in? $300,000 is a sizable donation for someone running for attorney general in a low key state.
- ForHackernews 9y ago> $300,000 is a sizable donation According to Forbes' estimates, Thiel is worth about $2.8 billion. Donating $300,000 for him is proportional to giving maybe $30 for a normal upper-middle class person.
- tryingagainbro 9y agoSure, sure. If Bill Gates gave $1 mil ist's nothing to him but what is it to ME? The average person would probably be tempted to murder someone in exchange for that
- ForHackernews 9y agoSure. It highlights the corrupting influence wealthy people have over politics. I'm just saying, Thiel giving a small (for him) donation to some random AG doesn't necessarily mean he's particularly interested in that race. I would guess he has given equal or larger donations to many other politicians and political action committees.
- slowmotiony 9y agoClearly Thiel is not important enough and has to use the old school way of lobbying - by sending massive amounts of cash through shady lobbying groups. If he was more important, he could simply call the president like Zuck: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/13/mark-zuckerberg-obama-nsa-facebook-message https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/13/mark-z...
- stonewhite 9y agoA rant tangential to original submission but, articles like you linked always push me to the edge. A supposedly tech journalist throwing around redundant requests. > a) Facebook Pro doesn’t track me; > b) Facebook Pro stores zero data about me; and > c) Facebook Pro uses encryption in every possible way. b makes a redundant, and c is already there. Also the personalization is the product itself, so storing "zero data" also breaks the product. Want to see an unpersonalized timeline looks like? Go check twitter. From the beginning, the timeline view (or whatever it is called) was unusable and most of all: irrelevant. People want to be on the Facebook because everybody is there, but for some reason people also want to get rid of core feature how it keeps all its users on board and active. Just don't use it if you are that bothered. (I don't)
- mankash666 9y agoThere's plenty of behavior from Google that smacks of anti-trust. From not showing competitors products in search results (protonmail was the most prominent recent case) to locking out customers heavily reliant on Google, they've gotten rather "evil" Having said that, I have zero confidence in politicians to make this right. If Google is evil, politicians are the spawns of Satan. Republicans probably have a bone to pick with Google given how left leaning googlers are. So this immediately transforms a anti trust issue into Democrats vs Republicans
- cisanti 9y agoThe fact that your Republicans have bone to pick might turn out to be good for the whole world if they can stop Google.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sdenton4 9y agoRepublicans support big business, though, right? (Having large successful businesses in blue states provides a well if funds they can transfer to the red states... As we see them doing with the current tax proposals.)
- thephyber 9y agoA comment in another thread made an interesting point about this press release done by the Missouri AG. Generally AGs don't need to send out press releases to announce the beginning of an investigation if they already have evidence that will stick. Google will probably end up hiring an expensive local law firm in Missouri and spend money on marketing to Missourians to improve its image. Without the AG's threat of a lawsuit, Google expenditures would probably largely avoid Missouri. If this is true, the AG is playing at something that kinda smells like a legal form of racketeering, unless there is actually strong grounds to bring a anti-trust case.
- redthrowaway 9y ago
- tryingagainbro 9y agoAmerica! Give $1000 to a Congressman and you buy what money in the real world cannot. In other countries corruption is more honest: want the license to build a building? It will cost you an apartment or $XX,XXX. Personally, I prefer the later...
- downandout 9y agoWhile this headline is factual, this is like saying "Man With Pre-Existing Health Conditions Donated to the Obama Campaign, and Now We Have Obamacare". People shop for candidates that will serve their interests and then try to help get them elected. That is how our system of government works, and there is nothing wrong with that. The article strives to imply that Thiel paid this guy off to bring the action, but provides no factual basis for such a conclusion. He apparently sought out a candidate that shared his point of view on Google, and donated to him. It's as simple as that. This article really is nothing more than drivel intended to further impune the reputation of a man hated by liberals for his support of Donald Trump. It's no coincidence that it appears in Bloomberg, which happens to be owned by one of the most liberal people on planet earth. I can't stand political propaganda masquerading as legitimate news - on the left or right - but that seems to be all we are exposed to these days.
- wavefunction 9y agoI disagree with your notion that some hypothetical person with health issues donating $100,000 to the Obama campaign is anywhere in the same moral and ethical situation being discussed here. In fact it sounds like quite an empty equivalency.
- naturalgradient 9y agoDo you have an argument other than that it feels wrong to you? Some people feel deeply about net neutrality and the state of society.
- 0xfffafaCrash 9y agoConsider two scenarios: You contribute $X to a political figure because you want to draw there attention to an issue because... A) you think society stands to benefit from making certain changes the political figure can enact B) you think you personally stand to not only get back your $X but personally fatten your wallet significantly in other ways as a result of changes the political figure can enact Is the distinction between cases where A applies and B doesn't apply vs. cases where B does apply (and A may or may not actually apply) with respect to ethics actually hard to grasp? In A, the $X is a personal sacrifice made for what you think is the greater good. In B, the $X is an investment for which you think you could have a high personal ROI for regardless of whether it actually makes things in general better or worse. Only B stands to create corruptive influences.
- 0xbear 9y agoIt’s only fair. Google goes after conservatives, conservatives go after Google. Don’t want your fortunes to depend on politics? Easy solution: stay out of politics. Be neutral and above the fray, declare political discourse (all of it, not just conservative points of view) socially unacceptable at work.
- ZeroGravitas 9y agoIs there any real evidence of Google going after conservatives? Is it not just a result of the fact that younger and better educated people are less likely to be conservative that gives this impression?
- 0xbear 9y agoGoogle is very “Chinese Revolution” on the inside. You can totally have negative career and social consequences for being public at work about your conservative viewpoints and voting preferences. At the same time you can have positive consequences for signaling virtue to liberals. You could say “that’s not Google” doing this, but the thing is, Google totally supports, condones, and encourages this behavior. But those are internal affairs, so you might argue this is irrelevant. But recently this attitude slipped outside with YouTube demonetization of conservative commentators, forced de-trending of popular conservative videos and forced trending of liberal ones? If you want to play this ball, expect defense to get involved.
- ZeroGravitas 9y agoI understand the general concept of what Google might do if it was actually doing this, I was looking for some kind of evidence that it was actually happening in reality. I watch a vlog about EVs on Youtube, and the host of that complains about being demonitized by some new algorithm. I'm fairly sure he's not a fascist that's been put on some list by the Googlestapo, so it seems likely that other people may just be jumping to conclusions.
- 0xbear 9y ago
- tomohawk 9y agoSoros is way scarier the way he is buying up district attorneys. http://freebeacon.com/politics/george-soros-continues-quietly-pile-wins-district-attorney-races/ http://freebeacon.com/politics/george-soros-continues-quietl...
- throttledagain 9y agoPlease don't spread your conspiracy bullshit here. Go back to talking about the deep state on reddit or wherever.
- ratsimihah 9y ago> unveiled a probe into Alphabet Inc.’s Google for favoring its own products in search results Is there something inherently wrong with that? I understand it's annoying, but Google is a business after all, not a charity. Not showing competing results could be considered evil, but merely favoring their own products seems fair to me. Then again every product I've been building never took off, so what do I know?
- tzury 9y agoThis headline has not been phrased with honesty nor dignity. Donated to a Campaign vs Gave Money to a person. Donated to a campaign in Jan. Google suite filed mid November.