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This thread so far has been pretty disappointing, reacting to the headline only, slashdot-style. The article is actually a pretty interesting look at what it ta

This thread so far has been pretty disappointing, reacting to the headline only, slashdot-style. The article is actually a pretty interesting look at what it takes to get people in Washington to start considering a different point of view, for good or ill. The interesting part of that is that it's completely reasonable that you have to get people thinking about things like how a search engine should function in a free market (beholden to the users, not the businesses it finds for them), but when it comes down to it, doing that is also fundamentally paying money to buy influence (even if that influence is just "that position now seems reasonable to me"). My initial reaction is to find lobbying distasteful in the same way I find marketing distasteful. An idea or product should stand on its own merits. Of course, it never works out that way: you might want to be noble and not introduce a new bias into the public, but people already have a host of biases, and to get them to even consider something new, you often have to help them get there. The emails they got under a FOIA request are also interesting in that light[1]. The Post tries a bit to make them sound somewhat scandalous, and I know we're trained by the media to only be interested in smoking guns, but it's interesting in precisely how mundane and completely reasonable lobbying can be, while still being about shaping the entire dialog to be more favorable. That said, there are some really bad parts here too, like describing SOPA as > "And, in what Google saw as a direct threat to the open Internet, major lobbies such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Motion Picture Association of America were mounting a legislative campaign to place restrictions on the sale of pirated music and movies." ugh. Kind of weird, too, as in the past the Washington Post has given good coverage of SOPA protests and why anyone would be protesting it... [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/2014/04/12/how-google-worked-behind-the-scenes-to-invite-federal-regulators-to-conferences/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/2014/04/12/how-g...

declan 13y ago
> really bad parts here too, like describing SOPA Yep. I think any article that describes SOPA as merely "placin[ing] restrictions on the sale of pirated music and movies" is begging to be criticized, especially here on HN. It makes you wonder what else it gets wrong! On the Post's SOPA point: First, it's been illegal to sell pirated works since the Copyright Act of 1790, as amended. Second, it's been a felony to distribute (as in, not selling but merely sharing) pirated works since the NET Act of 1998. Third, as far as I can tell, Google has no problem with those long-standing restrictions on the sale of pirated music and movies. Fourth, that "restrictions" language mischaracterizes the many unrelated problems with SOPA. I can tell the Post put a lot of work into the article, and it was a good read, even though it buried the lede (Microsoft's PAC is larger), made factual errors (companies don't donate to PACs), missed a big reason Google was able to reach out to libertarian/conservative groups (it toned down its misguided lobbying for aggressive Net neutrality regs/laws), spent too much time on a conference barely distinguishable from dozens of others (organized by an academic center that had for years publicly disclosed it received funding from Google), and claimed that limiting government surveillance draws "unexpected bedfellows" (left-right pro-4A coalitions linking ACLU and conservatives date back at least 20 years). Disclaimer: I know most of the folks interviewed in this article and spent a decade in DC. Fortunately I'm now in the SF bay area and doing something rather more productive. :)
- AJ007 13y ago
  Its fair to now note that the Washington Post is now owned by Jeff Bezos. The article should have disclosed this. (Amazon is included in the chart of campaign donations.)
  - declan 13y ago
    That's a good point. Amazon and Google are direct competitors in tablets (Nexus vs. Kindle), phones, app stores, cloud computing (I'm using both for Recent.io), local delivery, living room TV, product search, etc. You could make a reasonable argument that Google competes with Amazon in more categories than it does with any other company. It's reasonable to disclose this in any case, just to remind the reader. (The WSJ does routinely.)
ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
1) Good lobbying: Google lobbies congress to allow self driving cars in all 50 states. result: good because its asking for permission not taxpayer handouts, consumers pay the entity through supply and demand not taxes 2) Grey area lobbying: Light rail manufacturers lobbied congress to increase federal spending to help with light rail projects across America. result: uses taxpayer dollars, might increase light rail projects in areas where it isn't needed, takes tax payer dollars and transfers them to the entity doing the lobbying 3) Bad lobbying: Chrysler, GM, & Ford lobbied congress to lower the fuel efficiency standard (MPG) and prevent increases. result: screwed themselves over because in the long run they could no longer compete fuel consumption wise with foreign auto makers and had to be bailed out Most people don't understand that lobbying is a tool. It can be used to enact laws that benefit or hurt different groups of people. It's more talked about when it does bad so people assume all lobbying is bad. Same with "bacteria", "fat" and "cholesterol".
- rayiner 13y ago
  One point about "good lobbying" though. Often, "bad lobbying" takes the guise of "good lobbying." Imagine a coal company lobbying to loosen air pollution controls, to leave to the market the decision of whether cheaper electricity or cleaner air is more valuable. It is easy to disguise permission to externalize negative effects as simply permission to let the market decide.
- hackuser 13y ago
  I wouldn't say the primary criteria is whether tax dollars are spent, though that can be important. There is also ROI on the public expenditure, non-economic effects on citizens (health, security, etc.), democratic fairness (does lobbying unfairly reduce other citizens' voice in the decisions), and justice (do the results cause injustices to others).
- brc 13y ago
  ...and radiation.
iwwr 13y ago
>The interesting part of that is that it's completely reasonable that you have to get people thinking about things like how a search engine should function in a free market [...], but when it comes down to it, doing that is also fundamentally paying money to buy influence That's because it's not a free market. It's a system of political patronage where if you don't have political support, someone (possibly competitors, or even the Department of Justice) will go hunting for you. It's not merely distasteful, it's deeply corrupt.
presootto 13y ago
If you have any questions regarding Google's activity in DC don't hesitate to send an e-mail to these addresses: rachelw@google.com lawyercat@google.com

declan 13y ago

> really bad parts here too, like describing SOPA Yep. I think any article that describes SOPA as merely "placin[ing] restrictions on the sale of pirated music and movies" is begging to be criticized, especially here on HN. It makes you wonder what else it gets wrong! On the Post's SOPA point: First, it's been illegal to sell pirated works since the Copyright Act of 1790, as amended. Second, it's been a felony to distribute (as in, not selling but merely sharing) pirated works since the NET Act of 1998. Third, as far as I can tell, Google has no problem with those long-standing restrictions on the sale of pirated music and movies. Fourth, that "restrictions" language mischaracterizes the many unrelated problems with SOPA. I can tell the Post put a lot of work into the article, and it was a good read, even though it buried the lede (Microsoft's PAC is larger), made factual errors (companies don't donate to PACs), missed a big reason Google was able to reach out to libertarian/conservative groups (it toned down its misguided lobbying for aggressive Net neutrality regs/laws), spent too much time on a conference barely distinguishable from dozens of others (organized by an academic center that had for years publicly disclosed it received funding from Google), and claimed that limiting government surveillance draws "unexpected bedfellows" (left-right pro-4A coalitions linking ACLU and conservatives date back at least 20 years). Disclaimer: I know most of the folks interviewed in this article and spent a decade in DC. Fortunately I'm now in the SF bay area and doing something rather more productive. :)

AJ007 13y ago
Its fair to now note that the Washington Post is now owned by Jeff Bezos. The article should have disclosed this. (Amazon is included in the chart of campaign donations.)
- declan 13y ago
  That's a good point. Amazon and Google are direct competitors in tablets (Nexus vs. Kindle), phones, app stores, cloud computing (I'm using both for Recent.io), local delivery, living room TV, product search, etc. You could make a reasonable argument that Google competes with Amazon in more categories than it does with any other company. It's reasonable to disclose this in any case, just to remind the reader. (The WSJ does routinely.)

ChrisNorstrom 13y ago

1) Good lobbying: Google lobbies congress to allow self driving cars in all 50 states. result: good because its asking for permission not taxpayer handouts, consumers pay the entity through supply and demand not taxes 2) Grey area lobbying: Light rail manufacturers lobbied congress to increase federal spending to help with light rail projects across America. result: uses taxpayer dollars, might increase light rail projects in areas where it isn't needed, takes tax payer dollars and transfers them to the entity doing the lobbying 3) Bad lobbying: Chrysler, GM, & Ford lobbied congress to lower the fuel efficiency standard (MPG) and prevent increases. result: screwed themselves over because in the long run they could no longer compete fuel consumption wise with foreign auto makers and had to be bailed out Most people don't understand that lobbying is a tool. It can be used to enact laws that benefit or hurt different groups of people. It's more talked about when it does bad so people assume all lobbying is bad. Same with "bacteria", "fat" and "cholesterol".

rayiner 13y ago
One point about "good lobbying" though. Often, "bad lobbying" takes the guise of "good lobbying." Imagine a coal company lobbying to loosen air pollution controls, to leave to the market the decision of whether cheaper electricity or cleaner air is more valuable. It is easy to disguise permission to externalize negative effects as simply permission to let the market decide.
hackuser 13y ago
I wouldn't say the primary criteria is whether tax dollars are spent, though that can be important. There is also ROI on the public expenditure, non-economic effects on citizens (health, security, etc.), democratic fairness (does lobbying unfairly reduce other citizens' voice in the decisions), and justice (do the results cause injustices to others).
brc 13y ago
...and radiation.

iwwr 13y ago

>The interesting part of that is that it's completely reasonable that you have to get people thinking about things like how a search engine should function in a free market [...], but when it comes down to it, doing that is also fundamentally paying money to buy influence That's because it's not a free market. It's a system of political patronage where if you don't have political support, someone (possibly competitors, or even the Department of Justice) will go hunting for you. It's not merely distasteful, it's deeply corrupt.

presootto 13y ago

If you have any questions regarding Google's activity in DC don't hesitate to send an e-mail to these addresses: rachelw@google.com lawyercat@google.com