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Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

778 points by subdane 8y ago

pishpash 8y ago
> “It should be pretty obvious that they should be asked what changed between 2010 and today,” said Cynthia Wong, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. What changed is Android, Google is losing a lot more than search, I've heard Android phones don't even work properly there. Apple phones work though.
- izacus 8y ago
  And Apple phones work because they gave iCloud keys to Chinese government (and became a trillion dollar company as a reward).
jostmey 8y ago
My take in the issue is that Google is being mismanaged. China will not allow a foreign company to compete against its home grown search engines, so why bother? By bowing to Chinese censorship, Google hurts its public image. Google's management should have expected that its employees, who joined Google on the premise of "Do not evil", would leak this to the public. In short, the people at the top of Google look like fools to me.
- zerb 8y ago
  The people at the top of Google are rich and have the freedom and resources to work on things that interest them. Also, this is an old issue, Google in China. I'm sure they won't start caring what a few outspoken individuals think by this point.
  - philipov 8y ago
    So what do you suggest instead?
- matz1 8y ago
  >China will not allow a foreign company to compete against its home grown search engines, so why bother? Bing is allowed in china >Google hurts its public image Sure some people get hurts but for some other, for example if I can use google service without having to mess with vpn, it would be convenient.
  - 394549 8y ago
    >> China will not allow a foreign company to compete against its home grown search engines, so why bother? > Bing is allowed in china It's probably more accurate to say the Chinese government will not allow a foreign company to out-compete one of its local champion companies. The Chinese government is probably fine with Google being a minor player, but they'd start to have issues if it starts dominating Baidu.
- bitL 8y ago
  We don't have the whole picture. Chinese might be open to some kind of a deal that could give Google share of the pie for a long time. If Internet really bifurcates and Chinese one spreads across most developing countries, it could pose a risk for Google to be left out of areas with majority of world's population.
  - partiallypro 8y ago
    Eric Schmidt said in a recent interview that the internet is going to split in two with China's version (censorship) v US's version (openness.) So...company behavior is matching that. I think the problem is that I firmly believe that freedom will win out in the long run. Chinese leadership will lose its grip once reality hits its economy, and Google's view is shortsighted in this regard imo. People will remember who helped suppress. A LOT can change in a decade.
    - ewjordan 8y ago
      Will the other tech companies be remembered for never resisting in the first place? IIRC Microsoft and Yahoo we're both like "censorship and tracking? HELL YEAH, where do we sign?" from day one.
      - partiallypro 8y ago
        That's quite different than Google tying search queries to a phone number. Though I also don't agree with censorship in Bing's regard either. Also from my understanding a lot of Bing/Yahoo results aren't "official policy" and the reports of censorship from 2014 have been addressed, a lot having to do with simplified Chinese characters/bad translation. Google even has higher share in China than Bing. Google already operates in China with .cn domain through Hong Kong, the new action is an entirely different posture.
- qubax 8y ago
  > China will not allow a foreign company to compete against its home grown search engines, so why bother? No. China will let a foreign company compete against its home grown search engines under its own terms. There's no way we'd let a chinese company take over search in the US. Why should they allow an american search engine take over? > By bowing to Chinese censorship, Google hurts its public image. Google has bowed down to european and american censorship. What difference does it make if they bow to chinese censorship? You don't seem outraged at google censoring in the US and Europe. > In short, the people at the top of Google look like fools to me. Yeah. The multibillionaires look real foolish with their multibillions in the bank. Google execs don't care what employees think. It's not their job. They work for the shareholders, not their employees. Considering how well google's stock have been doing, it doesn't seem like shareholders are too shaken up about google getting back in china. The faux moralizing is getting ridiculous. Especially when a significant portion of people on HN are demanding more censorship at home.
  - notriddle 8y ago
    > There's no way we'd let a chinese company take over search in the US. Why not? Korea and China dominate the manufacturing part, why should search be any different?
    - qubax 8y ago
      > Why not? Because it's important ( national security level important ). > Korea and China dominate the manufacturing part, why should search be any different? Korea and China dominate the manufacturing part of search? What does that even mean?
- analyst74 8y ago
  Chinese government is not this monolith entity with a single will. All major firms operating in China will have to have some sort of government connections who champion for them, otherwise its competitors will use their influence in government branches to put on more scrutiny on them, creating a competitive advantage. At its core, this is not that different from major US firms having to have allies in media and Washington to avoid being heavily scrutinized. Although how the connections are established and how the influence is carried out might be new to US companies. Google will have to learn and compete at a disadvantage in the meantime.
- diminoten 8y ago
  I'm sure some MBA has run the numbers and determined that operating in China provides $X over Y interval, I highly suspect another MBA has run the numbers and determined that operating in China costs $Z dollars to Google's brand, and I'd guess that X >>> Z.
- malandrew 8y ago
  Completely agree. The best thing they can do is focus on containment by focusing on winning all the countries surrounding China so that the Chinese companies can't really expand beyond China's borders. There's nothing wrong with making sure Baidu, Tencent and all the other big Chinese companies remain largely China-only companies.
rajuvegesna 8y ago
Fundamental issue is the expectation that all public companies must keep growing and show profits quarter after quarter, year after year. This is obviously unsustainable. It is like a treadmill that keeps increasing speed. If you slow down, you are thrown out. If consecutive quarterly results are not good, CEO is typically thrown out. This pressure forces management to make unnatural decisions that might help short-term, but will hurt long-term. What we are seeing with Google with all of these recent events/decisions is a result of this, IMO.
- luminiferous 8y ago
  Obviously, growing every quarter significantly is not sustainable. But growing profits every quarter is how stock price goes up, right? Assuming you don't pay dividends on your stock, if you don't grow profits every quarter then your stock price doesn't go up, and the shareholders (via the board of directors) will sack the CEO. The whole incentive structure for corporations seems to cause the short term thinking that you see in large companies. Can you keep the shareholders placated by paying dividends instead of growing stock value via growing profit?
  - pc86 8y ago
    You still need to grow by more than the dividend or you will erode share price over time. Nobody invests $100 into a company so that a year from now it is $100, even if they get a couple $2.50 checks throughout the year on top of that.
    - stale2002 8y ago
      > You still need to grow by more than the dividend or you will erode share price over time No you don't. Imagine a company that has a share price of 100$. And this company makes 10$ in profit, per share, and returns that 10$ in profits to shareholders every year in perpetuity. Thats a 10% rate of return that investors would be happy to accept in perpetuity. People accept this deal all the time. Usually they are called "bonds" or "loans", and they act as merely an a perpetuity cash payout.
IBM 8y ago
Brian Acton or anyone else feeling guilty about their ad-tech wealth: use your winnings to lobby for a federal privacy bill that is as strong and comprehensive as GDPR (and other EU privacy regulations). The industry is moving to enact something that maintains the status quo [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/technology/tech-industry-federal-privacy-law.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/technology/tech-industry-...
- noreddit323 8y ago
  Why the sudden concern over tech companies mining our habits? Advertisers have been doing it for years, using government funded research in military propaganda that made it's way into universities after WW2 as marketing and journalism programs. This rhetoric is something like "Kill this particular witch!" without questioning whether the belief we hold on how the world works is rational. EDIT: let me re-state: Why is the public conversation around data mining limited to west coast tech? Media be capitalizing on the public mistrust in the air after the election, and government is leaning in. Why should any big brand or corporate master be enabled to collect and analyze my behavior in an effort to get me to buy more of their widgets without my explicit approval?
  - 394549 8y ago
    > Why the sudden concern over tech companies mining our habits? Because tech companies have broad, detailed, individual-level visibility into our habits. Neither traditional advertisers nor the government have ever had data that detailed.
    - codeddesign 8y ago
      Having extensive experience in adtech - besides reading your emails I can assure you they have the same level of sofistication and tracking. Major brands know more about you than your spouse.
      - 394549 8y ago
bilbo0s 8y ago
I actually applaud Poulson for leaving Google in protest of Google's Chinese business practices. Having mentioned that, I think I have to part ways with him when he implies that the correct way to "fix" this is to have the government come in and make these sorts of business decisions for the company. I don't believe in the government obliging businesses to do things. Especially when it looks like this whole thing is Google specific. That's unfair to Google. What about all the other American companies doing business in China? Do they get to keep doing business because they are politically popular companies but Google is not? Or would this be a government mandate of a broad based American pull out? Or just forcing Google to let its employees have a say in how it's run? (But again, you gonna force every company? Or just Google?) Etc etc etc. Once government gets involved and starts playing favorites, everything gets messed up.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- gunnihinn 8y ago
  > Once government gets involved and starts playing favorites, everything gets messed up. OK. Is it more or less messed up than that a private corporation can and is willing to perform surveillance on foreign citizens on behalf of those citizens' government that would be unacceptable anywhere else?
  - tensor 8y ago
    A company complying with the laws of the country it does business in seems fairly uncontroversial to me, even if you may not agree with those laws. Do you want your companies to be extensions of US foreign policy?
    - bogomipz 8y ago
      >"Do you want your companies to be extensions of US foreign policy?" No but it would be nice if they at least upheld the same values of the country that they themselves are a product of. Or are values just things you can draw arbitrary borders around when it's convenient?
romed 8y ago
A good thing to keep in mind is that there are hundreds of thousands of ex-googlers. The fact that one or more of them holds this belief is virtually assured.
mzs 8y ago
last week >Google hushing employees on Chinese search engine https://www.axios.com/google-china-dragonfly-employees-search-engine-20da9795-ff79-4fb9-a8c1-f8160b7b8607.html https://www.axios.com/google-china-dragonfly-employees-searc...
- TACIXAT 8y ago
  >The search engine requires users to log in to use its search features and tracks user's locations. It shares user's history with a Chinese partner. All searches would be connected to a personal phone number and user movements, along with the IP address of the device they used, would be recorded. How is this at all different from the US version?
  - blub 8y ago
    In the US you don't get disappeared for your searches (yet).
    - TACIXAT 8y ago
      You kind of do though. [1] The government sends national security letters to tech companies all the time. Interest in certain topics can land you on lists. [2] The US absolutely intercepts anything they can in plain text (and does their best to break the encryption on things that aren't). 1. https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-374-keywords-the-u-s-government-monitors/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-374-keywords-the-u-s-gover... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - mzs 8y ago
    $ curl -A 'Mozilla/5.0 (MSIE; Windows 10)' \ 'https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&q=do+i+need+to+login' 2>/dev/null | \ tr '<>' '\n\n' | grep results a class=gb1 href="https://www.youtube.com/results?gl=US&tab=w1" All results About 1,740,000,000 results $
pg_bot 8y ago
This "broad pattern of unaccountable decision making", also called permissionless innovation, is the reason why America has a culture of innovation. For those unaware, the United States runs on what I call "Air Bud rules", named for this scene from the children's movie.[0] To summarize, as long as there isn't a rule forbidding you from doing something, you can do it. While I applaud his personal stance on refusing to work on a censored search engine, any solution that requires foregoing independent corporate decision making would be foolish. For those who have been tasked with building tools that support authoritarian regimes, grow a spine, make your voice heard, and quit if necessary. Don't give me any bullshit excuses for continuing, if you know it's wrong stop supporting it! [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jvf0WWxrYRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jvf0WWxrYRM
- forapurpose 8y ago
  > This "broad pattern of unaccountable decision making", also called permissionless innovation, is the reason why America has a culture of innovation. I've seen that theory, but my understanding is that striking a proper balance is what fosters innovation; anarchy yields corruption and spoils for the powerful; it does not reward the most productive and innovative. Also, my impression is that other things may be much more important for innovation, especially opportunity for education, for capital, and for access to the market (e.g., rules that prevent vested interests from blocking newcomers from the marketplace). > any solution that requires foregoing independent corporate decision making would be foolish Should we abolish all laws and regulations about safety, fraud, and fairness? Personally, I don't see corporations as having such a great track record that I trust them so implicitly.
  - pg_bot 8y ago
    I'm not advocating for anarchy, just that we stick to the laws that are actually codified. We should be reactive to bad behavior, not proactive. Instead of blanket calls for regulation, we should be specific and considerate when making new rules as they often have unintended consequences. Instead of having to constantly ask for permission, you should be able to read the rules and make decisions independently. You don't hear about the millions of interactions that occur daily without consequence so I believe your views on corporations may be biased.
paradite 8y ago
"Hey US lawmaker, Google is trying to follow Chinese laws when operating in China, we need to stop this!"
Aunche 8y ago
Yet another white American who thinks that thinks that their personal moral grievances are more important than a billion Chinese people gaining access to Google. This is even worse than men telling women that abortion is evil because at least men can claim to speak for the fetus. I've yet to hear a convincing argument that Dragonfly make the lives of Chinese dissidents any worse, let alone regular residents.
- ben_jones 8y ago
  Go clear your cookies, history, change your IP, and open Youtube. Take a look at what videos Google is promoting for you, then decide if the the family of Google products is that essential to human life.
  - Aunche 8y ago
    If your standards of what is OK to keep away from people is "not essential to human life," you should join the CPC. Religion, freedom of the press, and privacy aren't essential to life either.
- freeone3000 8y ago
  If Google is as censored as Baidu, what does China gain from access to Google?
- calimac 8y ago
  You have no concept of what Google/Alphabet has in mind for expanding into China. Your ignorant and compartmentalize ideologue view of this with an arrogant undertone is dangerous to a free society. Schmidt has a track record for tyranny and regime change using google tech; see a joint authored book Schmidt wrote with his state department understudy who developed social agitation mobile technology used to torment the arab spring under Clinton, Jared Cohen out of Stanford. LMGIFU: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=eric+schmidt+and+jared+cohen+arab+spring&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=eric+sc... (The same Stanford Balsy Ford works at heading up the C!@ undergraduate internship program. )
- 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
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RegicidalManiac 8y ago
I trust Google management over Government any day. We do not want to Google to then engage in war mongering, fear mongering either. I think increased Trade with China is better. American companies having larger footprint in China is better for them and Americans. I think Chinese will have to give up their censorship over long term.
calimac 8y ago
Google took the tact early to align with government. 1. The hired Eric Schmidt out the shoot of infancy 2. Their early funding was tied to C1@ sand hill road v.c. 3. They aligned with NOAA out of moffett field to store their corp jets. 4. They budgeted for significant lobby in D.C. 5. Schmidt et, al,. spent much time and effort embedding himself in the apparatchik of the Obama Administration and other radical groups like D.S.A. Google/Alphabet is in fact an enemy of the people that use it and society as a whole.
deleted 8y ago
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subtlefart 8y ago
Detractors have probably infiltrated the company
tomphoolery 8y ago
He should have just published the source code.
akst 8y ago
Isn’t this out side the jurisdiction of US courts? This product isn’t operating in the US, so I’d be surprised if the court would do anything... To clarify I’m not a google Stan, I don’t even use gmail, it’s just that Google isn’t the only American business to launch in China, why is google being singled out here?
- ForrestN 8y ago
  To answer your question without expressing an opinion myself: the people protesting Google's decision would probably cite the company's longstanding "Don't Be Evil" marketing, and the good publicity the company has sought in the past for refusing to do exactly what they are now doing. Also, as far as timing, Google is being focused on now because they've just announced a major new product. Lots of other companies have been criticized in the past for complicity with China's brutal dictatorship.
Lin-Den 8y ago
The issue I see is that the United States government consistently attacks internet freedom, much more so than Google has historically. The decision to make a censored search engine may not be the best one, but it's definitely a lot better than what Alphabet would get up to if it were under the control of Congress.
williesleg 8y ago
I love how these companies lie in front of congress and nothing happens. Too big to fail? Where's the competition?
kyrieeschaton 8y ago
Google has a specific division, Jigsaw, previously Google Ideas, dedicated to advancing the interests of a group more or less synecdochic with the US State Department. They paradropped in a company of engineers to save the signature Obama administration policy proposal, at massive effective subsidy. We have just seen video and documentary evidence of them attempting to rig US elections to their favored result by massive, illegal, in-kind contributions to the Democratic party. They are as much of a de facto agent of the deep state at this point as Lockheed, and probably more pernicious due to their attempts to cultivate self-reinforcing political power to manipulate policy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Cohen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Cohen https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/emails-show-google-executive-discussing-effort-to-encourage-latino-vote-surprised-so-many-voted-for-trump https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/emails-show-google-e...
- wilsonnb3 8y ago
  > We have just seen video and documentary evidence of them attempting to rig US elections to their favored result by massive, illegal, in-kind contributions to the Democratic party. Your Washington examiner article falls short of saying that Google made any kind of illegal contributions. It also falls short of providing evidence that Google tried to rig any elections.
  - kyrieeschaton 8y ago
    When a Google executive describes altering search results to achieve a favored electoral outcome, that qualifies under any reasonable reading as an in-kind (a good or service provided directly, rather than a bundle of cash) campaign contribution. Whether you consider covert attempts to use their market power in search to achieve unrelated political outcomes as "rigging" I guess depends on your viewpoint.
netwanderer2 8y ago
Look, if anyone wants to business in China, they would have to comply to the demands of government there, that's no question. It's common sense and nobody can avoid this. I think the question we need to ask is what motivates Google to return to this market? Does the costs and benefits analysis report show enough evidences to justify this action?
- int_19h 8y ago
  The question, rather, is whether we should change the costs and benefits such that they will have to rethink this decision.
leopoldfreeman 8y ago
For these who support google's business in China, I want to ask there FxxKers, how about apply the services for you? There's an old saying in China: "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."
known 8y ago
I don't get BigCo attitude; They say Consumer doesn't know what is good and not good for them. So we will decide.
paul7986 8y ago
Google isn’t nice to the little guy innovators ... invite them out to discuss buying ones technology only to bait and switch you and kick you out saying the race is on. Later getting patents for what you met/discussed with them. I’ve noted my story before and everyone says that’s just how it goes. Ummm that’s how it went for Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby til it didn’t. Wrong and horrible behavior will eventually catch up to you or any company!
KKKKkkkk1 8y ago
Does the New York Times have any conflicts of interest in its coverage of Google and Facebook? I can't recollect anything positive the NYT has written about those two in maybe a decade.
jondubois 8y ago
Megacorporations are a massive threat to democracy. If we ever get into a situation where the only companies that exist are megacorps, democracy will cease to exist; not only that but it will be impossible to reform the system in the future. The government will be too weak to regulate companies and people who work at those companies will not be able to protest for change because if they lose their jobs, there will be no alternative jobs for them to survive on. It will be permanently locked in this dysfunctional state until the end of humanity.

778 points by subdane 8y ago

> “It should be pretty obvious that they should be asked what changed between 2010 and today,” said Cynthia Wong, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. What changed is Android, Google is losing a lot more than search, I've heard Android phones don't even work properly there. Apple phones work though.

izacus 8y ago
And Apple phones work because they gave iCloud keys to Chinese government (and became a trillion dollar company as a reward).

jostmey 8y ago

My take in the issue is that Google is being mismanaged. China will not allow a foreign company to compete against its home grown search engines, so why bother? By bowing to Chinese censorship, Google hurts its public image. Google's management should have expected that its employees, who joined Google on the premise of "Do not evil", would leak this to the public. In short, the people at the top of Google look like fools to me.

zerb 8y ago
The people at the top of Google are rich and have the freedom and resources to work on things that interest them. Also, this is an old issue, Google in China. I'm sure they won't start caring what a few outspoken individuals think by this point.
- philipov 8y ago
  So what do you suggest instead?
matz1 8y ago
>China will not allow a foreign company to compete against its home grown search engines, so why bother? Bing is allowed in china >Google hurts its public image Sure some people get hurts but for some other, for example if I can use google service without having to mess with vpn, it would be convenient.
- 394549 8y ago
  >> China will not allow a foreign company to compete against its home grown search engines, so why bother? > Bing is allowed in china It's probably more accurate to say the Chinese government will not allow a foreign company to out-compete one of its local champion companies. The Chinese government is probably fine with Google being a minor player, but they'd start to have issues if it starts dominating Baidu.
bitL 8y ago
We don't have the whole picture. Chinese might be open to some kind of a deal that could give Google share of the pie for a long time. If Internet really bifurcates and Chinese one spreads across most developing countries, it could pose a risk for Google to be left out of areas with majority of world's population.
- partiallypro 8y ago
  Eric Schmidt said in a recent interview that the internet is going to split in two with China's version (censorship) v US's version (openness.) So...company behavior is matching that. I think the problem is that I firmly believe that freedom will win out in the long run. Chinese leadership will lose its grip once reality hits its economy, and Google's view is shortsighted in this regard imo. People will remember who helped suppress. A LOT can change in a decade.
  - ewjordan 8y ago
    Will the other tech companies be remembered for never resisting in the first place? IIRC Microsoft and Yahoo we're both like "censorship and tracking? HELL YEAH, where do we sign?" from day one.
    - partiallypro 8y ago
      That's quite different than Google tying search queries to a phone number. Though I also don't agree with censorship in Bing's regard either. Also from my understanding a lot of Bing/Yahoo results aren't "official policy" and the reports of censorship from 2014 have been addressed, a lot having to do with simplified Chinese characters/bad translation. Google even has higher share in China than Bing. Google already operates in China with .cn domain through Hong Kong, the new action is an entirely different posture.
qubax 8y ago
> China will not allow a foreign company to compete against its home grown search engines, so why bother? No. China will let a foreign company compete against its home grown search engines under its own terms. There's no way we'd let a chinese company take over search in the US. Why should they allow an american search engine take over? > By bowing to Chinese censorship, Google hurts its public image. Google has bowed down to european and american censorship. What difference does it make if they bow to chinese censorship? You don't seem outraged at google censoring in the US and Europe. > In short, the people at the top of Google look like fools to me. Yeah. The multibillionaires look real foolish with their multibillions in the bank. Google execs don't care what employees think. It's not their job. They work for the shareholders, not their employees. Considering how well google's stock have been doing, it doesn't seem like shareholders are too shaken up about google getting back in china. The faux moralizing is getting ridiculous. Especially when a significant portion of people on HN are demanding more censorship at home.
- notriddle 8y ago
  > There's no way we'd let a chinese company take over search in the US. Why not? Korea and China dominate the manufacturing part, why should search be any different?
  - qubax 8y ago
    > Why not? Because it's important ( national security level important ). > Korea and China dominate the manufacturing part, why should search be any different? Korea and China dominate the manufacturing part of search? What does that even mean?
analyst74 8y ago
Chinese government is not this monolith entity with a single will. All major firms operating in China will have to have some sort of government connections who champion for them, otherwise its competitors will use their influence in government branches to put on more scrutiny on them, creating a competitive advantage. At its core, this is not that different from major US firms having to have allies in media and Washington to avoid being heavily scrutinized. Although how the connections are established and how the influence is carried out might be new to US companies. Google will have to learn and compete at a disadvantage in the meantime.
diminoten 8y ago
I'm sure some MBA has run the numbers and determined that operating in China provides $X over Y interval, I highly suspect another MBA has run the numbers and determined that operating in China costs $Z dollars to Google's brand, and I'd guess that X >>> Z.
malandrew 8y ago
Completely agree. The best thing they can do is focus on containment by focusing on winning all the countries surrounding China so that the Chinese companies can't really expand beyond China's borders. There's nothing wrong with making sure Baidu, Tencent and all the other big Chinese companies remain largely China-only companies.

rajuvegesna 8y ago

Fundamental issue is the expectation that all public companies must keep growing and show profits quarter after quarter, year after year. This is obviously unsustainable. It is like a treadmill that keeps increasing speed. If you slow down, you are thrown out. If consecutive quarterly results are not good, CEO is typically thrown out. This pressure forces management to make unnatural decisions that might help short-term, but will hurt long-term. What we are seeing with Google with all of these recent events/decisions is a result of this, IMO.

luminiferous 8y ago
Obviously, growing every quarter significantly is not sustainable. But growing profits every quarter is how stock price goes up, right? Assuming you don't pay dividends on your stock, if you don't grow profits every quarter then your stock price doesn't go up, and the shareholders (via the board of directors) will sack the CEO. The whole incentive structure for corporations seems to cause the short term thinking that you see in large companies. Can you keep the shareholders placated by paying dividends instead of growing stock value via growing profit?
- pc86 8y ago
  You still need to grow by more than the dividend or you will erode share price over time. Nobody invests $100 into a company so that a year from now it is $100, even if they get a couple $2.50 checks throughout the year on top of that.
  - stale2002 8y ago
    > You still need to grow by more than the dividend or you will erode share price over time No you don't. Imagine a company that has a share price of 100$. And this company makes 10$ in profit, per share, and returns that 10$ in profits to shareholders every year in perpetuity. Thats a 10% rate of return that investors would be happy to accept in perpetuity. People accept this deal all the time. Usually they are called "bonds" or "loans", and they act as merely an a perpetuity cash payout.

IBM 8y ago

Brian Acton or anyone else feeling guilty about their ad-tech wealth: use your winnings to lobby for a federal privacy bill that is as strong and comprehensive as GDPR (and other EU privacy regulations). The industry is moving to enact something that maintains the status quo [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/technology/tech-industry-federal-privacy-law.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/technology/tech-industry-...

noreddit323 8y ago
Why the sudden concern over tech companies mining our habits? Advertisers have been doing it for years, using government funded research in military propaganda that made it's way into universities after WW2 as marketing and journalism programs. This rhetoric is something like "Kill this particular witch!" without questioning whether the belief we hold on how the world works is rational. EDIT: let me re-state: Why is the public conversation around data mining limited to west coast tech? Media be capitalizing on the public mistrust in the air after the election, and government is leaning in. Why should any big brand or corporate master be enabled to collect and analyze my behavior in an effort to get me to buy more of their widgets without my explicit approval?
- 394549 8y ago
  > Why the sudden concern over tech companies mining our habits? Because tech companies have broad, detailed, individual-level visibility into our habits. Neither traditional advertisers nor the government have ever had data that detailed.
  - codeddesign 8y ago
    Having extensive experience in adtech - besides reading your emails I can assure you they have the same level of sofistication and tracking. Major brands know more about you than your spouse.
    - 394549 8y ago

bilbo0s 8y ago

I actually applaud Poulson for leaving Google in protest of Google's Chinese business practices. Having mentioned that, I think I have to part ways with him when he implies that the correct way to "fix" this is to have the government come in and make these sorts of business decisions for the company. I don't believe in the government obliging businesses to do things. Especially when it looks like this whole thing is Google specific. That's unfair to Google. What about all the other American companies doing business in China? Do they get to keep doing business because they are politically popular companies but Google is not? Or would this be a government mandate of a broad based American pull out? Or just forcing Google to let its employees have a say in how it's run? (But again, you gonna force every company? Or just Google?) Etc etc etc. Once government gets involved and starts playing favorites, everything gets messed up.

deleted 8y ago
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gunnihinn 8y ago
> Once government gets involved and starts playing favorites, everything gets messed up. OK. Is it more or less messed up than that a private corporation can and is willing to perform surveillance on foreign citizens on behalf of those citizens' government that would be unacceptable anywhere else?
- tensor 8y ago
  A company complying with the laws of the country it does business in seems fairly uncontroversial to me, even if you may not agree with those laws. Do you want your companies to be extensions of US foreign policy?
  - bogomipz 8y ago
    >"Do you want your companies to be extensions of US foreign policy?" No but it would be nice if they at least upheld the same values of the country that they themselves are a product of. Or are values just things you can draw arbitrary borders around when it's convenient?

romed 8y ago

A good thing to keep in mind is that there are hundreds of thousands of ex-googlers. The fact that one or more of them holds this belief is virtually assured.

mzs 8y ago

last week >Google hushing employees on Chinese search engine https://www.axios.com/google-china-dragonfly-employees-search-engine-20da9795-ff79-4fb9-a8c1-f8160b7b8607.html https://www.axios.com/google-china-dragonfly-employees-searc...

TACIXAT 8y ago
>The search engine requires users to log in to use its search features and tracks user's locations. It shares user's history with a Chinese partner. All searches would be connected to a personal phone number and user movements, along with the IP address of the device they used, would be recorded. How is this at all different from the US version?
- blub 8y ago
  In the US you don't get disappeared for your searches (yet).
  - TACIXAT 8y ago
    You kind of do though. [1] The government sends national security letters to tech companies all the time. Interest in certain topics can land you on lists. [2] The US absolutely intercepts anything they can in plain text (and does their best to break the encryption on things that aren't). 1. https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-374-keywords-the-u-s-government-monitors/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-374-keywords-the-u-s-gover... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- mzs 8y ago
  $ curl -A 'Mozilla/5.0 (MSIE; Windows 10)' \ 'https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&q=do+i+need+to+login' 2>/dev/null | \ tr '<>' '\n\n' | grep results a class=gb1 href="https://www.youtube.com/results?gl=US&tab=w1" All results About 1,740,000,000 results $

pg_bot 8y ago

This "broad pattern of unaccountable decision making", also called permissionless innovation, is the reason why America has a culture of innovation. For those unaware, the United States runs on what I call "Air Bud rules", named for this scene from the children's movie.[0] To summarize, as long as there isn't a rule forbidding you from doing something, you can do it. While I applaud his personal stance on refusing to work on a censored search engine, any solution that requires foregoing independent corporate decision making would be foolish. For those who have been tasked with building tools that support authoritarian regimes, grow a spine, make your voice heard, and quit if necessary. Don't give me any bullshit excuses for continuing, if you know it's wrong stop supporting it! [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jvf0WWxrYRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jvf0WWxrYRM

forapurpose 8y ago
> This "broad pattern of unaccountable decision making", also called permissionless innovation, is the reason why America has a culture of innovation. I've seen that theory, but my understanding is that striking a proper balance is what fosters innovation; anarchy yields corruption and spoils for the powerful; it does not reward the most productive and innovative. Also, my impression is that other things may be much more important for innovation, especially opportunity for education, for capital, and for access to the market (e.g., rules that prevent vested interests from blocking newcomers from the marketplace). > any solution that requires foregoing independent corporate decision making would be foolish Should we abolish all laws and regulations about safety, fraud, and fairness? Personally, I don't see corporations as having such a great track record that I trust them so implicitly.
- pg_bot 8y ago
  I'm not advocating for anarchy, just that we stick to the laws that are actually codified. We should be reactive to bad behavior, not proactive. Instead of blanket calls for regulation, we should be specific and considerate when making new rules as they often have unintended consequences. Instead of having to constantly ask for permission, you should be able to read the rules and make decisions independently. You don't hear about the millions of interactions that occur daily without consequence so I believe your views on corporations may be biased.

paradite 8y ago

"Hey US lawmaker, Google is trying to follow Chinese laws when operating in China, we need to stop this!"

Aunche 8y ago

Yet another white American who thinks that thinks that their personal moral grievances are more important than a billion Chinese people gaining access to Google. This is even worse than men telling women that abortion is evil because at least men can claim to speak for the fetus. I've yet to hear a convincing argument that Dragonfly make the lives of Chinese dissidents any worse, let alone regular residents.

ben_jones 8y ago
Go clear your cookies, history, change your IP, and open Youtube. Take a look at what videos Google is promoting for you, then decide if the the family of Google products is that essential to human life.
- Aunche 8y ago
  If your standards of what is OK to keep away from people is "not essential to human life," you should join the CPC. Religion, freedom of the press, and privacy aren't essential to life either.
freeone3000 8y ago
If Google is as censored as Baidu, what does China gain from access to Google?
calimac 8y ago
You have no concept of what Google/Alphabet has in mind for expanding into China. Your ignorant and compartmentalize ideologue view of this with an arrogant undertone is dangerous to a free society. Schmidt has a track record for tyranny and regime change using google tech; see a joint authored book Schmidt wrote with his state department understudy who developed social agitation mobile technology used to torment the arab spring under Clinton, Jared Cohen out of Stanford. LMGIFU: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=eric+schmidt+and+jared+cohen+arab+spring&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=eric+sc... (The same Stanford Balsy Ford works at heading up the C!@ undergraduate internship program. )
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RegicidalManiac 8y ago

I trust Google management over Government any day. We do not want to Google to then engage in war mongering, fear mongering either. I think increased Trade with China is better. American companies having larger footprint in China is better for them and Americans. I think Chinese will have to give up their censorship over long term.

calimac 8y ago

Google took the tact early to align with government. 1. The hired Eric Schmidt out the shoot of infancy 2. Their early funding was tied to C1@ sand hill road v.c. 3. They aligned with NOAA out of moffett field to store their corp jets. 4. They budgeted for significant lobby in D.C. 5. Schmidt et, al,. spent much time and effort embedding himself in the apparatchik of the Obama Administration and other radical groups like D.S.A. Google/Alphabet is in fact an enemy of the people that use it and society as a whole.

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subtlefart 8y ago

Detractors have probably infiltrated the company

tomphoolery 8y ago

He should have just published the source code.

akst 8y ago

Isn’t this out side the jurisdiction of US courts? This product isn’t operating in the US, so I’d be surprised if the court would do anything... To clarify I’m not a google Stan, I don’t even use gmail, it’s just that Google isn’t the only American business to launch in China, why is google being singled out here?

ForrestN 8y ago
To answer your question without expressing an opinion myself: the people protesting Google's decision would probably cite the company's longstanding "Don't Be Evil" marketing, and the good publicity the company has sought in the past for refusing to do exactly what they are now doing. Also, as far as timing, Google is being focused on now because they've just announced a major new product. Lots of other companies have been criticized in the past for complicity with China's brutal dictatorship.

Lin-Den 8y ago

The issue I see is that the United States government consistently attacks internet freedom, much more so than Google has historically. The decision to make a censored search engine may not be the best one, but it's definitely a lot better than what Alphabet would get up to if it were under the control of Congress.

williesleg 8y ago

I love how these companies lie in front of congress and nothing happens. Too big to fail? Where's the competition?

kyrieeschaton 8y ago

Google has a specific division, Jigsaw, previously Google Ideas, dedicated to advancing the interests of a group more or less synecdochic with the US State Department. They paradropped in a company of engineers to save the signature Obama administration policy proposal, at massive effective subsidy. We have just seen video and documentary evidence of them attempting to rig US elections to their favored result by massive, illegal, in-kind contributions to the Democratic party. They are as much of a de facto agent of the deep state at this point as Lockheed, and probably more pernicious due to their attempts to cultivate self-reinforcing political power to manipulate policy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Cohen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Cohen https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/emails-show-google-executive-discussing-effort-to-encourage-latino-vote-surprised-so-many-voted-for-trump https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/emails-show-google-e...

wilsonnb3 8y ago
> We have just seen video and documentary evidence of them attempting to rig US elections to their favored result by massive, illegal, in-kind contributions to the Democratic party. Your Washington examiner article falls short of saying that Google made any kind of illegal contributions. It also falls short of providing evidence that Google tried to rig any elections.
- kyrieeschaton 8y ago
  When a Google executive describes altering search results to achieve a favored electoral outcome, that qualifies under any reasonable reading as an in-kind (a good or service provided directly, rather than a bundle of cash) campaign contribution. Whether you consider covert attempts to use their market power in search to achieve unrelated political outcomes as "rigging" I guess depends on your viewpoint.

netwanderer2 8y ago

Look, if anyone wants to business in China, they would have to comply to the demands of government there, that's no question. It's common sense and nobody can avoid this. I think the question we need to ask is what motivates Google to return to this market? Does the costs and benefits analysis report show enough evidences to justify this action?

int_19h 8y ago
The question, rather, is whether we should change the costs and benefits such that they will have to rethink this decision.

leopoldfreeman 8y ago

For these who support google's business in China, I want to ask there FxxKers, how about apply the services for you? There's an old saying in China: "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."

known 8y ago

I don't get BigCo attitude; They say Consumer doesn't know what is good and not good for them. So we will decide.

paul7986 8y ago

Google isn’t nice to the little guy innovators ... invite them out to discuss buying ones technology only to bait and switch you and kick you out saying the race is on. Later getting patents for what you met/discussed with them. I’ve noted my story before and everyone says that’s just how it goes. Ummm that’s how it went for Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby til it didn’t. Wrong and horrible behavior will eventually catch up to you or any company!

KKKKkkkk1 8y ago

Does the New York Times have any conflicts of interest in its coverage of Google and Facebook? I can't recollect anything positive the NYT has written about those two in maybe a decade.

jondubois 8y ago

Megacorporations are a massive threat to democracy. If we ever get into a situation where the only companies that exist are megacorps, democracy will cease to exist; not only that but it will be impossible to reform the system in the future. The government will be too weak to regulate companies and people who work at those companies will not be able to protest for change because if they lose their jobs, there will be no alternative jobs for them to survive on. It will be permanently locked in this dysfunctional state until the end of humanity.