The Philanthropic Arm of Google

GoatJuggler writes "I accidentally visited google.org recently and ended up at a different Google site that appears to be a placeholder for Google's future foray into the world of philanthropy. A quote from Sergey Brin & Larry Page is there now, 'We hope that someday this institution will eclipse Google itself in overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world's problems.' Not much to see there now, but it's certainly refreshing to see a successful company leveraging their success to do good. Googling part of that quote led me to a blog that references the uniqueness of Google's SEC filing. The Google Foundation is referenced, and Google's job page now mentions that they are looking to fill the position of Executive Director for the Google Foundation. So, expect Good Things(TM) (like saving 3-legged kittens) from Google soon."

Comments

Their first task

[daveKfs]

Google's first task for humanity should be to explain to us what philanthropic means.

Re:Their first task

[BlacBaron]

May I suggest you google it :)

Answers

Re:Their first task

[ggvaidya]

Done!

So what's the next task?

Re:Their first task

[khujifig]

It comes from old greek.
phil- meaning love of, pasion for, interest in etc, anthropic - of man.

So it means something like "love of humankind" (generally).

Words with similar bits in are like necro-philia, (love of dead things) or the ghastly "X-phile".
Also things like anthropo-morphic (people-shaped). /learning greek, have too much time on hands.

All that, and a great tax write off too!

[Anonymous Coward]

(see subject)

In other words...

[Sanity]

..."Google is going to do good stuff in the future, but we have no idea what".

Is there any way to filter out stories about Google on Slashdot?

Re:In other words...

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Is there any way to filter out stories about Google on Slashdot?

Sure: put this into your /etc/hosts.conf file:

0.0.0.0 slashdot.org

Re:In other words...

[SA Stevens]

What's wrong with the regular /etc/hosts file?

Have they unleashed another new, non-standard boondoogle into the new systems that crufts up plain /etc/hosts?

Saving three legged kittens from Google?

[DoorFrame]

We need to save three legged kittens from Google now? What, do they want to rip off the remaining legs? Are they going to come back to finish the job?

Now I truly fear the monstrosity that is Google.org.

Re:Saving three legged kittens from Google?

[BlacBaron]

Yes they plan to rip off their remaining limbs, and replace them with artificial super strong ones. With this army of artificially enhanced super cats they should soon be able to complete their plans for world domination (TM)

Re:Saving three legged kittens from Google?

[PornMaster]

When they liberate a 2-legged cat from a Chinese restaurant, that's when the "saving" really begins.

Sergei: We can rebuild him. We have the technology.

Then, they fuse together the two- and three-legged cats, and create Cat5, a supercat to guard the Googleplex.

Re:Saving three legged kittens from Google?

[BeerCat]

hey fuse together the two- and three-legged cats, and create Cat5

Would that Cat5 be twisted pair, then?

Re:Saving three legged kittens from Google?

[menace3society]

Why not subtract them? They you could have cat(1). Or cat(-1) if you botched it....

Re:Saving three legged kittens from Google?

[Tekgno]

There would be no cats resulting from this, only 1 or -1 legs respectively. You then add these to deformed cats until you have a normal cat again.

Cleaning their image

[sellin'papes]

Just another major corporation saying 'don't be afraid of us, look at all the generous things we do'. That scares the shit out of me.

If google is making enough money to give it away to boost their reputation, then I wonder how much tax they are paying. How much money in tax breaks to Google could have gone to building schools, money for hospitals, or even to pay down the deficit?

Re:Cleaning their image

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, looking at the recent spendings of the US government, I think the money will be better spent by Google than by the folks collecting taxes.

Just my opinion.

Re:Cleaning their image

[zkn]

You are saying that you would trust the government to use the money in good intentions rather then google, on the grounds that google intend to spend them in good intentions?
This is just expanding the "don't be evil" policy to "Be good" wich can't really hurt anyone(Exept 3legged kittens apparently).
Besides google cant stabilice an intire economy on it's own, even if it does decide to pay more taxes then it rightfully should.

Re:Cleaning their image

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

Had the money not gone to charity, only part of it would have been taxed. As such, even less, after administrative expenses and so on, would have reached those who need it.

If you're worried that Google trying to screw the system over by giving to charity, you have your priorities mixed up.

Re:Cleaning their image

[William Robinson]

Hmmm.. your fears are not baseless. Their monopoly and financial muscle certainly brings some concerns. But if the organization is giving better signals, why not just accept it.

Moreover this is not their first gesture. If u are aware, Google is supporting Firefox big way. Internet world has gained a lot from Google.

Re:Cleaning their image

[spongman]

more tax money doesn't help bad schools, it just makes bad schools more expensive.

collecting taxes to pay off debt just moves the burden of debt from the government to the people. the only way for a country to pay off debt is to become more productive, and raising taxes isn't the best way to do that.

Re:Cleaning their image

[tobybuk]

There is always someone who will kick you in the nuts for doing the right thing.

Re:Cleaning their image

[ajs]

We (that is those of us in the U.S.) have made decision, either directly or by proxy through our lawmakers to allow companies, to a certain extent, to decide to funnel money into charitable causes instead of into their tax bill. Companies do this because there's more PR in charities than paying your taxes.

If, every time a large corporation does this (and they all do), you're going to get scared of what horrible evil that PR is covering up, you're going to end up cowering in fear at every step. It's just one way of the government spending tax dollars that doesn't involve the government getting to decide HOW to spend those dollars. IMHO, that's a heck of a lot better than handing it to war-mongers.

What really boggles me is that a genuinely good company like Google (I've talked with several people there, and watched their business closely, and they ARE good) gets accused of having horrible malicious goals more than any 3 other companies I've ever heard of. I mean, for Pete's sake, GE makes NUKES! It's their job. They crank them out like candy. And yet, somehow it's Google that we focus our scrutiny on?!

Re:Cleaning their image

[Anonymous Coward]

more tax money doesn't help bad schools, it just makes bad schools more expensive.

That is certainly true when the schools are bad because they're wasting money on crap, but some schools are short of money, and would do good things if they had it. The hard thing is to figure out which are which...

collecting taxes to pay off debt just moves the burden of debt from the government to the people.

Now that's just stupid. Government debt is your burden, or your children's. No politician or civil servant is going to suffer if the public debt increases. You will, when you're competing with them to borrow, and when you're trying to import things and pay for them with a devalued US dollar.

the only way for a country to pay off debt is to become more productive, and raising taxes isn't the best way to do that.

That's one way, but not the only way. Cutting spending on crap like porkbarrelling and crazy wars are others.

Re:Cleaning their image

[The-Bus]

Just repeating what I'm sure others have said, but if Google is going to give away $100MM to causes they like as opposed to paying $100MM in taxes, then we're not really worse off. The problem begins when we have companies that don't pay $100MM in taxes and then... Give it to the execs.

Unfortunately, while Google's scenario is the prefered one*, we still need to avoid the alternate exec-paying scenario. Hence, the government serves as an unwanted, but necessary conduit by which to distribute this money.

* In the State of Delaware, your yearly tax return has an option for you to directly contribute to causes you may want (preserving wildlife, breast cancer education, veterans) from your refund. Sort of a neat idea -- I wonder what % of people take advantage of it.

Re:Cleaning their image

[aav]

Hmm, I don't know which post will be more off-topic: this or the parent. Anyway...

The government is not an independent entity. It actually represents the people and whatever it does affects the people. The debt of your country is your debt as well, and you share it with your co-nationals. Moreover, your government operates with the money from your taxes which is, ultimately, your money. Basically your country being a debtor means that your government has been spending the money you haven't given to it yet (simplistically written, admittedly, but you haven't gone beyond the republican slogans either).

If you didn't like that thought, then think for whom you vote next time.

You might find excuses to prove me wrong, but they won't amount to more than being just excuses.

Raising taxes is not a problem. It's how they are spent that makes a difference. If your government raised the taxes to provide universal health care, nobody would need to pay for insurance. Take with one hand, give with the other. However, that also means that your government would be managing more of your money, and some people have a problem with that (for good reasons too).

You don't provide any reason for saying that low taxes encourage increasing productivity and, implicitly, economic growth. And that's because it's wrong and you don't have a valid reason. The statistics waved so dearly by the republicans are misleading at best. They are measured in yearly intervals and the reference is always the worst year of the recent period (e.g. 1982 for Reagan's tax cuts, 1999 for Bush II). The claims made based on these numbers are fraud. The measurements should be compared over whole economical cycles (i.e. periods between two successive recessions; this usually translates into one decade). The peaks and the averages should be considered, not the lowest points.

If you did all this, you'd find that the tax rate doesn't have any significant influence on the state of the economy.

Re:Cleaning their image

[SA Stevens]

Companies do this because there's more PR in charities than paying your taxes.

Actually, some entities do this because the government is so corrupted, slanted by special interests, and utterly incapable of doing certain needed things. Many charitable foundations have people who might be termed 'captains of industry' sitting on their board, people who have PROVEN they are capable administrators. Government, on the other hand, is composed of careerist civil service sloths, and the overgrown shyster 'used car salesmen' types who succeed in politics.

Re:Cleaning their image

[The Cisco Kid]

Google hardly has a monopoly.

Their search isnt their income-producing profit, their advertising is. And they surely have no lock on the advertising market, even the web advertising market. They also dont really have much power to abuse any perceived monopoly you think they do have, since if you dont like their search, you *are* always free to use another one, on a moments whim (yahoo/msn/whatever).

Someone else's choice of search engine hardly has any effect on your choice (unlike the case where someone sends you a document that your job depends on, and sends it in a proprietary format that the vendor of only one brand of software refuses to document, and even goes so far as to *patent* key technology that would have to be used in any competing software trying to read/interpret that data - which would definitely be an abuse of monopoly)

Re:Cleaning their image

[Anonymous Coward]

>>If your kids bring home a report card full of "A"s, would you find that a good reason to beat the tar out of them?

Yes, I most certainly would. But then, I live in soviet russia.

Re:Cleaning their image

[BabyDriver]

Okay then, let's set it to 100% and stop arguing!

Since the USA is a Republic, it can't set a tax rate over 80%.

Re:Cleaning their image

[Storlek]

Nice, but your experiment is meaningless unless you're searching all three search engines for all three phrases. If you search Yahoo for "Evil Microsoft" the first page is also the Microsoft homepage, whereas Google doesn't even list microsoft.com on the first page at all for that search. The first result for "evil Yahoo" on MSN search is evilyahoo.com, and Google brings up a news story from SEO Logic that just happens to have the two words next to each other in the page title. ("Google vs. Evil, Yahoo Acquires Inktomi, Commentary on Froogle...")

You can draw your own conclusions from that, but I say it just shows that search engines aren't all the same.

Yes but

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

The important question is : will google.org get mirrored too?

cool

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe one day they'll give as much and do as much as microsoft/bill gates has.

i dont really think the starving people in africa bill gates has fed really give two hoots about where the money comes from.

sometimes, being capitalist swine can be a good thing.

Re:cool

[northcat]

Yeah, we are all really greatful for our Capitalist care-takers in USA. Can we please have the priviledge of worshipping your feet?

Re:cool

[Lord_Dweomer]

Oh grow the fuck up. Nobody is saying to worship the "capitalist care-takers". All we're saying is stop whining when a company does something good with their money by giving it to charities.

But wait, they're getting something out of it, they're getting a tax writeoff and lots of PR! HOLY CRAP! What is this world coming to.

If companies are giving money to poor starving people, thats a GOOD THING. Don't bring your prejudices against America into this.

Re:cool

[slavemowgli]

I don't think anybody's really opposed to Bill Gates (or anyone) donating money to good causes - but on the other hand, most people (or most Slashdotters/geeks/etc. at least) also reserve the right to criticize Bill Gates for everything else he does. The fact that he's doing good things does not mean that we suddenly have to overlook all the bad things he's also doing.

Re:cool

[rollingrock]

Here's one hypothetical scenario: * Bill Gates never got into the computer industry. * Microsoft was never formed. * The computer industry wasn't held back by its monopolistic practices. * Netscape succeeded in making the web a platform a decade before Google. * The computer industry as a whole was 300% more productive over the next ten years. * Commoditisation of the operating system meant that money was not siphoned off every industry that uses computers needlessly.

Doubtful. If Bill Gates were hit by a truck before Microsoft was formed, then its a near certainty that someone else (let's call him Gill Bates) would have stepped in, and we would all be complaining about his monopoly of the OS market. But then, we have no guarantee that Gill Bates would be near as philanthropic (or at all). Just going by the odds, its more than likely that Gill's philanthropic contributions would be far less than Bill's.

Re:cool

[Reality Master 101]

If Bill Gates never came along, then Apple might've won, and then we would have been stuck with an software AND hardware monopoly. Computers would cost $10,000, run 1/10th the speed, and only after much pain and suffering would Apple have been broken up.

Gates was GOOD for the industry. He "got it" (something Apple still hasn't) -- commodity hardware is good, and fosters a healthy software industry.

Like it or not, an operating system is a natural monopoly. *Something* would have won out. Software companies need a standard to write to.

There is no way we could've had a web platform a decade ago. Hell, a web platform might not be possible now, even with relatively common broadband. Not to mention that a web platform will suck for a lot of things. And let's not even talk about how screwed up Netscape was. Their software was HORRIBLE toward the end.

Other Philanthropists

[gihan_ripper]

Though much maligned in our community, Bill and Melinda Gates and Steve Case have also set up charitable foundations.

Of course, it's up to the reader to determine whether their goals are truly philanthropic or whether they serve to extend the agendas of Bill and Steve. More to the point, is any philanthropic organisation ever agenda-free?

Re:Other Philanthropists

[Tim]

Well, here in Seattle, a number of researchers are being paid by the Gates' Foundation to conduct applied research into malaria infection.

Given that malaria is one of the biggest third-world killers, and that very few drug companies are willing to invest research money into drugs for poor people, I think the Gates' are actually doing some good work in this area.

I suppose you could tie that to an "agenda," but you'd have to be awfully cynical.

Re:Other Philanthropists

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, it's up to the reader to determine whether their goals are truly philanthropic or whether they serve to extend the agendas of Bill and Steve.

Why are those mutually exclusive? You use the word "agenda" as if it's synonymous with "evil." Can't someone have an agenda for good? What if it's Bill's agenda to wipe out malaria? Certainly Bill has business practices we abhor, but wiping out malaria is an unreserved miracle, no matter who does it. If that's part of his agenda then I hope he succeeds.

Re:Other Philanthropists

[Craig_P92669]

Bill and Melinda Gates and Steve Case have also set up charitable foundations.

Great. Google is joining Wolfram and Hart.

gezz

[Anonymous Coward]

this is just one step closer to googledot.org

"No Evil" and its meaning

[LewsTherinKinslayer]

Everyone on /. loves to discuss whether or not google's rather benevolent attitudes about technology, innovation and being a business is genuine or not.

Many like to say that google is somehow the golden child of corporations. That they are above all others, magically concerned with not only their own profits.

Others like to say its all bullshit; a happy face they stick on to look more appealing to the masses. After all, any corporation is as evil as any other, and their primary concern for their stockholders is obviously profit.

But who's right? I'd say that, as usual, the truth lies somewhere in between. I think the founders of Google and its staff truly, genuinely wish to keep themselves untainted. People always get a bad taste in their mouth when they hear about businesses like Enron. And I for one would certain prefer to employ the business of a company who has this positive attitude, its refreshing. By virtue of this admirable reputation, they generate more business. Seems win-win.

Re:"No Evil" and its meaning

[iBod]

"I think the founders of Google and its staff truly, genuinely wish to keep themselves untainted."

"Don't be evil".

I think Google desparatley wish to APPEAR 'untainted' to keep their geek/hippy cred.

IMHO Google is just another 100% red-blooded capitalist business, doing what they have to do, no matter what they claim to the contrary.

I'm not saying that's a 'wrong' thing to be, but they should at least drop the BS and the fake bonhomie.

Profit, market share and stockholder returns are Googles mantras, just like any other successfull corporate.

If you think otherwise, you're totally deluding yourself IMHO.

Re:"No Evil" and its meaning

[SA Stevens]

I choose a third option.

3. Google is really no better or worse than the average corporation, and the average corporation can and sometimes is benevolent.

You see? It's not an either/or choice.

Corporation

[McGiraf]

Google is now a publicly traded company. So by law they must put their stockholders interest above all. If their phylantropic action just spends money without any return on investment (tax, public image, publicity) they are liable to be sued by stock holders. The "Do no evil" mantra is now meaningless.

Read thr book or see the documentary:
http://www.thecorporation.com

Re:Corporation

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Not really, they can point to their SEC filing and say it's part of the companys mission. Anyone investing should know what kind of company google is, and therefor can't sue it for not maximising profit at all cost.

Re:Corporation

[McGiraf]

Yes it happened to Ford and to the Body Shop also, they did not get sued but the founder lost control after they went public and the good stuff she was doing with the profit was mostly stopped.

To the editors

[JDOHERTY]

How and when did Slashdot become a press release spot for Google? Is this a technology story? The poster nor editor make any mention of other companies efforts in this area. Can we do something with 'Goole-giving' right now? Have they innovated the process? Do you think they'll have a 'Google-stock-picker' next, after all we're all need a little help?

Old news

[DaoudaW]

This is _so_ old news.

The blog and of course the SEC Form S-1 were written in April, 2004. As far as I can tell nothing has changed since then except for a very brief coming soon website.

Nothing to see here. Move on! Move on!

Someday???

[CatsupBoy]

We hope that someday this institution will eclipse Google itself in overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world's problems.

In otherwords, Google is domain squating.

I've been thinking of subscribing to Slashdot...

[ShaunC]

...but this story gives me yet another reason not to. I mean come on, a Google story once in awhile is valuable, as is a Firefox story once in awhile, or a Perl story every now and then.

But for the past month, it seems that every day brings a new Google story or three to Slashdot. Then we start getting "news" stories like this which aren't news at all, but instead describe features of Google which have existed for at least a year. I suppose that I could submit a story about Google indexing belly-button lint, referencing a two paragraph article that I posted somewhere, and it would wind up on the /. front page.

This story is a non-story, like many of the Google stories lately. Google.org has a bit of text promising to be philanthropic, in some undetermined manner, at some undetermined point in the future. How in $DEITY's name is this a news story? If I were to buy the .org version of my company's domain, and erect a similar site claiming that I want to do great things, would it be worthy of an entry on Slashdot's front page? Of course not.

Does OSDN get a kickback from Google for every Google article posted here? I really want to know, because it's getting ridiculous, and if Slashdot doesn't provide a way to opt-out of the multitude of unnecessary Google articles, there's no way that I'm going to start paying for this.

Re:Already doing good

[northcat]

This is the second thread I'm seeing saying that they don't know what "Philanthropy" means. Do people really don't know what philanthropy means? I live in a non-English (non-European/American) country and English is not my mother-tongue and philanthropy was one of the words we learnt here as little kids. This is really surprising me.

Re:I had a three legged kitten

[itsthebin]

My 3 legged dog dreams of 3 legged kittens.

Worth mentioning that Google isn't the only one

[FunctionalMethod]

Gates Foundation /waits for the "OMG IT'S FOR TEH TAXES" response.

Bill Gates and Sergey Brin & Larry Page

[3770]

Sergey Brin & Larry Page say they will do Philantropy.

Conclusion: They, and Google, are the greatest on earth.

Bill Gates is one of the largest philantropes on the planet.

Conclusion: He, and Microsoft, is the spawn of satan.

Don't misunderstand my sarcasm above. I think that what Sergey Brin & Larry Page are doing is great. But lets keep things in perspective. And lets not keep a dual standard here.

I love Google, and I dislike Microsoft, but I know that to some extent I'm being irrational.

Re:Bill Gates and Sergey Brin & Larry Page

[slavemowgli]

From what I understand, Bill Gates' foundation does not have anything to do with Microsoft, though, does it (other than being funded by money that Gates earned due to his job at M$)?

That being said, there's another, more important point, too: the fact that someone (whether a person, company or any other entity) does some good things does not mean that all the bad things they do have to be overlooked. Even if M$ would directly fund charitable causes, I still would reserve the right to criticise them for the bad things they do - and there's plenty of stuff to criticise them for.

If I was more cynical, I might even say that a thief who uses part of his loot to fund charitable causes is still a thief, but I'm not *that* cynical yet. ;)

Re:Bill Gates and Sergey Brin & Larry Page

[csimicah]

From what I understand, Bill Gates' foundation does not have anything to do with Microsoft, though, does it (other than being funded by money that Gates earned due to his job at M$)?

Yes, other than the freakin' billions of dollars flowing from the one to the other, they don't have a single thing to do with each other. So, a pretty minor connection than.

Purpose of charitable tax "write offs"

[anti-NAT]

The government (well the AU government anyway) doesn't want to apply tax to money you've earned that you give to charities.

In AU (and possibly other places), a "tax write off" doesn't really directly reduce your tax at all. What it does is reduces your taxable income, IOW, the income that tax is calculated against. For example, if, before tax, you've earned $30 000, and you donate $2000 to a charity, your taxable income then becomes $28 000. The government is being charitable itself, in saying that they don't want a tax slice of the $2000 you've donated.

Another way to look at it is that your taxable salary is your "profit" for working - you're allowed to make tax deductions on things necessary to generate that salary "profit". For example, being in IT, I can claim Internet access, IT Books etc. All these tax deductions are not reducing my tax, they are reducing the portion of my salary that I'll pay tax on.

So, if you want to pay no tax, give away all of your salary to a Charity until your taxable salary is below the taxable salary threshold eg. in AU, $6000 p.a.

I'm fairly sure that companies have the same general options - if they donate part of their profit to charity, they don't pay tax on their donations. Of course, they could give away all of their profit to a charity, pay no tax, but also not pay the shareholders any increase in their investment (dividend, increased stock price via stock buy back).

I'm not accountant so I could be somewhat wrong about the above. I am fairly sure about the concept of tax deductions not "directly reducing" your tax though - I used to think that way, as I think a lot of other people do. It's all about reducing your taxable income.

Re:Purpose of charitable tax "write offs"

[jonbryce]

I am an accountant, and I can confirm that what you say is correct.

There are some companies that donate their entire profits to charity. They are mostly trading subsidiaries of the charity in question, and they pay their profits to the charity as a donation rather than as dividends so that they don't have to pay any tax on their profits.

Mod parent down immediately

[syberdave]

Aah! My virgin eyes! *rinses eyes out with acid*

Re:Philanthropy

[sjb2016]

If this is an attempt to mock American's for being ignorant of a particular word used in the English language, fine. However, in terms of giving to charity Americans are a very generous people. Read a report on (global) philanthropy http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id =S')8H*P!3'%200%204%0A Or, if you're in America but don't have online access to the Economist, why not go to your local public library which may well have been funded by Andrew Carnegie and read it there?

They'll give people money

[ProsperoDGC]

I'm very amused by the complaints about Google starting a foundation. Yes, Google gets a tax break by donating to charity. But so do most US citizens when you give cash (or time, or gas expenses, or whatever) to charitable causes. So suggesting that Google is being somehow underhand by starting a foundation is a petty argument sourced in sheer cynicism... Unless you only contribute to charity for the tax break?

The fact is, Google has scads of money just lying about the place. They can invest it, but sometimes the "return on investment" is better if that same money is invested in good works, such as scientific research, food programs, and the like. It depends on your definition of "return," I guess.

Regardless of what you think about their ethics or business practices, Brin+Page, Gates, Case, and the like have chosen to invest their capital in ventures that will (ideally) generate more than a capital return in the short-term. By doing so through a foundation, they're demonstrating both good business sense and laudable philanthropy. They shouldn't be condemned for either.

Re:Personally,...

[B3ryllium]

Google Foundation vs. Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation, FIGHT!!

(Hey ... it could help people out if they start competing to do good :))

This debt is your debt

[bitspotter]

This debt is your debt
this debt is my debt
from preemptive warfare
to the housing projects

from the wealthy tax breaks
to the corp'rate favors
this debt was made by you and me!

...undoing the evil influences of Stanford and MIT

[cwcpetech]

Put some serious effort to get some people who dont have the "Ivy League" background into Google working at the same level as those from those currently there. After they can get get a good deal of people not from exclusionist backgrounds, then they might consider funding a scholarship that no longer makes it "social connection or perceived merit" to get into the Ivy League type of university. After all, if they're "not doing evil", maybe they might want people that dont run things like Stanford, MIT or CIT (see gmail, Orkut, Ivy League and west coast equivalents).