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Leak reveals US Government lobbied on behalf of Oracle.
- gtufano 15y agoDirect cable link: http://cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=09BRUSSELS1455&q=mysql http://cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=09BRUSSELS1455&q...
- crag 15y agoSo what? Happens all the time.
- mkup 15y agoI think taxpayer money shouldn't be secretly spent to support private company.
- raganwald 15y agosecretly Thank you. We live in a democracy. We expect our governments to do things for us, and every four or five years we decide whether we like what they've done. That only works when they are transparent. If the US government wants to shill for Larry, fine, but tell us so we can decide whether they are "Going to bat for American business and jobs."
- omouse 15y ago"Going to bat for American business and jobs" is a bit of a lie since Oracle has roughly the same number of employees in both the Americas and the Asia Pacific regions and the number of employees in Europe, Middle East & Africa has been growing. The US government shouldn't be shilling for anyone, Oracle should do it for themselves.
- raganwald 15y agoBy “fine,” I mean, “Do it, but tell us and then be prepared to be judged in the next election.” I suspect we agree on how we would judge it if I were an American citizen entitled to vote on the Administration’s actions.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- gaius 15y agoYou wait 'til you read about what they do for Boeing!
- forinti 15y agoOr even worse for United Fruit Co.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company
- jbooth 15y agoOr more modern, Exxon. I don't have such a problem with doing this kind of stuff in europe for Oracle, or uselessly for boeing (airbus will always get better treatment in europe). But you want to see some real cloak and dagger shit, read about commodities.
- arethuza 15y agoAlso BAE in the UK - Blair stopped an enquiry into the huge amount of alleged corruption associated with an enormous arms sale to Saudi Arabia: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/uk/Corruption-inquiry-into-6bn-Saudi.2835243.jp http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/uk/Corruption-inquiry-into-6...
- mvidal01 15y agoDo you have a URL? Inquiring minds want to know.
- jbooth 15y agoI read about it in a book by an ex-CIA guy from the Clinton years. Can't remember the guy's name now, but remember thinking at the time (2004 or so) that it had almost certainly gotten worse since then. His allegations were that State and CIA were frequently involved in securing access to oil in the 3rd world for American corporations, because it was deemed a national security priority. In the way of circumstantial evidence, here's an article about Shell (netherlands) being fined for bribing everyone they interacted with in Nigeria in order to get into the oilfields: http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2010/12/25/wikileaks-shells-astonishing-revelations-about-nigerian-corruption/ http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2010/12/25/wikileaks-shells-as... ExxonMobil has a huge presence in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Khazakhstan.. you do the math.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- jwingy 15y agoLobbying is disgusting - no matter who does it.
- omouse 15y agoIs this a surprise? Governments and industry are joined at the hip. There's a hell of a revolving door in all governments; business people become politicians and vice versa and for some reason we accept it.
- webXL 15y agoOr [soulless corporate moochers bribe] politicians and vice versa and for some reason we accept it. Most politicians are lifers. After practicing (and failing) law, of course.
- arthurgibson 15y agoI'm pretty sure the government couldn't afford to let Sun fail, every piece of software that I've seen with even a remote affiliation with the US gov. has been built on Java.
- jagan123 15y agoand why not .NET with MS being a top player? Didn't the lobbying work out well?
- mootothemax 15y agoIs this very unusual? UK Trade & Investment is a government agency that does the same as far as I can tell: UKTI works to boost UK export performance, attract foreign direct investment to the UK, and enhance the UK’s reputation in global markets. We are the best trade promotion organisation in the developed world http://www.ukti.gov.uk/home.html?guid=none http://www.ukti.gov.uk/home.html?guid=none
- nl 15y agoAs they should have. I would expect any EU investigation into a US company would (or should) have US gov officials talking to their counterparts in the EU. No big fan of Oracle, but the antitrust issues were nonsense anyway, mostly talked up by people who had vested commercial interests in seeing MySQL spun out.
- justincormack 15y agoBut mysql was originally European, so there was some strange extra significance.
- nl 15y agoI didn't mean to imply that the EU shouldn't have run an investigation. That is perfectly fair and logical. But once that occurred US gov involvement should also be expected.
- swiecki 15y agoThey did it to protect jobs. Sun claimed to have to cut 3000 jobs because of the EU approval delay. The US probably was trying to rush them so the merger could go through and Sun would not go bankrupt. It's all in the cable. Read it for yourself, and then decide if this government intervention was a good or bad thing. Note: Above, I have not given my opinion on this. I have not said, "this is good." I have only given my speculation as to the reasons the US gov would do this based on the cable.
- jeffdavis 15y agoWhy not allow companies to get approved before announcing it to the public? That way, the investors aren't taken for a wild ride as politicians battle it out in public.
- DrHankPym 15y agoI wonder how Google feels about this leak.
- anigbrowl 15y agoThere is no big secret here, just a general lack of awareness of how the government works. Here is a press release from the Department of Justice's Antitrust division from 2009 indicating that it approved the Sun/Oracle merger, that it was disappointed to see that the European Commission did not approve, and that it was going to to be advocating on Oracle's behalf: http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/press_releases/2009/251782.htm http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/press_releases/2009/251782... "After conducting a careful investigation of the proposed transaction between Oracle and Sun, the Department's Antitrust Division concluded that the merger is unlikely to be anticompetitive. [...] At this point in its process, it appears that the EC holds a different view. We remain hopeful that the parties and the EC will reach a speedy resolution that benefits consumers in the Commission's jurisdiction. [...] "The Department and the European Commission have a strong and positive relationship on competition policy matters. The two competition authorities have enjoyed close and cooperative relations. The Antitrust Division will continue to work constructively with the EC and competition authorities in other jurisdictions to preserve sound antitrust enforcement policies that benefit consumers around the world." It would be a surprise if the government - or indeed, any government - was not lobbying on behalf of its domestic industrial concerns. The basic purpose of embassies throughout history has been to promote trade. There were embassies long before there was any such thing as tourism.