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Google made plans to target the EU official in charge of digital policy updates
- justinclift 6y agoYet another reason to not give people's health data to Google or Alphabet. Allowing them to pull more dirty tricks is not the right direction.
- Sabinus 6y ago>It contained a two-month strategy to remove “unreasonable constraints” to Google’s business model and “reset the narrative.” It singled out Mr. Breton, listing one objective to “increase pushback” on the French commissioner in an attempt to weaken support for the proposed plans in Brussels. A very corporate strategy.
- noodles_nomore 6y agoCentralized control means centralized pressure points. The idea that this is "not the way we operate" is laughably upside-down coming from any corporate entity.
- mpweiher 6y ago"This is not the way we want to be seen to operate" :-)
- rpastuszak 6y agoIt's about plausible deniability, nothing more, really. And it's not much different from huge companies outsourcing their work to companies managing sweatshops or relying on child labor. They can distance themselves from it if shit hits the fan, but still benefit from, well, slavery.
- throwaway2245 6y agoIn the absence of direct responsibility, it's my view that the CEO should be (made) legally and personally responsible for decisions including outsourcing child slavery.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- NetOpWibby 6y agoInterestingly, I just got finished watching cutscene movies for Hitnan 1 and 2 (thinking about buying Hutman 3) and this kind of story sounds like a mission, sans bodily harm. I feel like everyone kinda sorta suspects corporations do this sort of thing (lobbyists et al) so while not surprising it is interesting that this got leaked.
- vincnetas 6y agoWhy, when we reading article about leaked information, why don't we get to see original leaked document, and only presented with the conclusions of the author. I'd like to make my own conclusions. Might be i spot something that author missed, or interpret things differently. Now i only get two quotes from document (presentation) "increase pushback" and "reset narrative"
- AmericanChopper 6y agoIf you keep you pay enough attention, I think you'd find that primary sources have nearly completely disappeared from the news media. They'd much rather tell you what to think, rather than risk having you make your own mind up.
- bobthepanda 6y agoGenerally speaking, uploading the original unaltered document is a great way of accidentally outing your source, since often printed materials and even digital copies have some sort of uniquely identifying marks.
- izacus 6y agoIt's also an amazing way to provide context and sabotage the narrative agenda the news article is pushing. We can't have that kind of nuance in modern media.
- bobthepanda 6y agoYou say this as if it was ever the case in pre-modern media either.
- skinkestek 6y agoExtremely valid point, I'd consider this close to table stakes. Also, in some more "interesting" settings there's also exploit-loaded documents to be aware of, here's from a leak I've been following lately: > If you really want to open a Word document from Psy-Group, please go ahead, knock yourself out. Below are the links to the Word document as well as the email. Just remember that Mr. [...] mistake might have been opening a Word file from Psy-Group in the first place… I took the liberty to remove the name as I guess that particular guy is probably suffering enough at the moment.
- ThePreacherMan 6y agoGood, the regulators have to feel the heat. If someone pushes against the interest of the farmers - they dump manure in front of the ministry of Agriculture. The IT world has manure on its own to give away!
- josephg 6y agoI disagree. Wealthy individuals and companies using their money to lobby for their own interests is immoral. Laws should be written on behalf of citizens, not weighted by wealth. Just because this sort of public corruption is business as usual in the US doesn’t make it good. The rest of the world doesn’t want wealthy Americans to have a say in our laws.
- beholder1 6y agoUnfortunately a moral and money rarely goes together as many history examples show. Do I understand correct that effectively in a modern economics it's only the US can print money (by Fed)? With that the ruling elite can do whatever needed to prolong its ruling, unfortunately far outside the US borders.
- josephg 6y agoNo. Other countries can and do print money. There are other currencies other than the United States dollar.
- sumosudo 6y agoFarmers actually feed us. Google just wants your mind and attention. No difference then.
- knorker 6y agoThat's not fair. You picked an upside and compared it to a downside. That's like saying Google helps information flow, and farmers just want to steal your taxes as corn subsidies.
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- mimikatz 6y ago"This isn't us" - Company that wrote the document.
- jariel 6y agoIt's not unreasonable for a company to 'push back' on regulatory actions they don't agree with. Tactics, proportionality, legality - that's what matters here. If they merely said they were going to 'pushback' there's nothing really wrong here. If they were hiring a PR firm to slander politicians, well that's really bad.
- nocturnial 6y agoThe original story came from a French newspaper lepoint [1] which then was picked up by ft [2]. Google proposed an alliance between booking.com, zal, ubisoft, carrefour,... to launch an advertising campaign to weaken the position of European lawmakers. The most alarming piece of google's "DSA 60-day plan update" presentation is that they also wanted to mobilise the US government to lobby against it via trade representative offices and embassies. [1]https://www.lepoint.fr/high-tech-internet/exclusif-comment-google-veut-faire-plier-bruxelles-28-10-2020-2398468_47.php https://www.lepoint.fr/high-tech-internet/exclusif-comment-g... (paywalled) [2] https://www.ft.com/content/d9d05b1e-45c0-44b8-a1ba-3aa6d0561bed https://www.ft.com/content/d9d05b1e-45c0-44b8-a1ba-3aa6d0561...
- PeterStuer 6y agoYou can read the article from Le Point here https://www.pressreader.com/france/le-point/20201029/285374814253898 https://www.pressreader.com/france/le-point/20201029/2853748...
- justinclift 6y ago> ... they also wanted to mobilise the US government to lobby against it via trade representative offices and embassies. Seems like they're copying the RIAA and MPAA approach for that bit.
- PunchTornado 6y agoif Google is sorry and "this is not the way we operate" then somebody in the company went against the company's ethics and procedures. Surely there should be a name, VP or SVP, who should be fired.
- user568439 6y agoSomebody under pressure to achieve results in one hand and a ethics code that nobody respects -till exposed- in the other. The result is always the same, big corporations end up behaving independently from the people they are composed.
- tgv 6y agoIsn't it management's task to reign that in? Aren't they responsible?
- wombatmobile 6y ago> Mr. Pichai said he also became aware of it when it became public in the media. He said: “I am sorry it happened that way.” But he said he took full responsibility for the leak and added: “This is not Google.” I would like a journalist to ask Mr. Pichai two questions: 1. Have you studied Boolean algebra? 2. How is this internal document "not Google"?
- rpastuszak 6y ago> Google said Mr. Pichai and Mr. Breton “had a frank, but open conversation about plans to update digital policy in Europe.” This (and the rest of the article) reads like it was discussing a conflict between the leaders of two different countries, but let's stop for a second and remind ourselves that we are talking about a a) political unit governing the lives of 450m people and b) a company. No company should be big enough to be considered an equal partner in a conversation like this. This kind of narrative is not new, but it's becoming a norm that people take for granted without realising how perverse it is.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoI can’t get behind this vision of the government as something that’s fundamentally above the rest of us. I’d argue that every company should be considered an equal partner in a conversation like this, to the greatest extent feasible. (And I’d argue the EU official here seems to agree - he mentions in the article that he wants to “hear and listen to everybody”.)
- __m 6y agoTheir employees can vote like the rest of us does
- lowdose 6y agoIf Mr. Pichai would say he is currently begging Mr. Breton to leave Google as is he would give Alphabet stockholders sufficient reason to annul him.
- vasco 6y ago"No company should be big enough to..." is a bit of a philosophical musing, but since the world we have has allowed for companies grow to this size and to own and dominate our data as they have, what other solutions would you have in mind to update digital policy that don't involve also speaking to the people at the helm of the very organizations that are holding most of said data? You wouldn't at least discuss the topic with them?
- Keyframe 6y agoThis guy running Google now really seems like he's driving ving it off the cliff. What ever happened to Brin and Page? I'm not following alphabet or google that much, but as if both of them disappeared even during Schmidt reign.
- knorker 6y agoWell, wall street loves Sundar and hates Larry. (Well, hate is a strong word)
- meekrohprocess 6y agoWell, Brin left a little while ago, and his reported habit of screwing his employees in the company massage room might make it seem a bit tone-deaf to invite him back.
- dredmorbius 6y agoSubstantiated: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/work/never-men-get-slut-shamed-amanda-rosenberg-affair-rocked-google/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/work/never-men-get-slut-sh... Heather Cairns: And we didn’t have locks, so you can’t help it if you walk in on people if there’s no lock. Remember, we’re a bunch of twentysomethings except for me—ancient at 35, so there’s some hormones and they’re raging. Charlie Ayers: H.R. told me that Sergey’s response to it was, “Why not? They’re my employees.” But you don’t have employees for fucking! That’s not what the job is. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/valley-of-genius-excerpt-google https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/valley-of-genius-exc...
- meekrohprocess 6y agoThank you, I should have included a source for that statement.
- Proven 6y agoI am not a fan of Google but how the hell some unelected bureaucrat can decide or impact who I can do business with or whose services can I use? Damn the EU.
- swiley 6y agoIf you're a citizen of a democracy, exposing yourself to mass manipulation engines run by companies like Google and Facebook is irresponsible. People like me who avoid these services don't do it just because of the cost to ourselves (which is in many cases minimal) but because of the impact it has to the people around us.
- HenryBemis 6y ago> Mr. Pichai said he also became aware of it when it became public in the media. He said: “I am sorry it happened that way.” But he said he took full responsibility for the leak and added: “This is not Google.” Google CEO shoud volunteer a $1bn donation in multiple charities, then fire EVERYONE involved in that process/memo, and then step down because he was either too useless to set the tone that "we in Google don't play like that", and/or he failed to stop this on day1 and/or.. buuusteeeeddddd!!! Anything else is just an effort trying to save face.
- microtherion 6y agoWell, now that Google’s plans have been exposed, Mr. Breton can rest safely. It’s not like Google has millions of cameras peeking from doorways. Or thousands of two ton autonomous robots roaming the streets...