Google Goes to Washington

DIY News writes "Google has hired a lobbyist in Washington D.C. to influence the nation's laws governing the Internet, telecommunications and copyrights. Google sees a presence in Washington as a necessity as government becomes more involved in the Net's development. Among its efforts, the government has worked to shield private U.S. companies from demands by the United Nations and other countries for multilateral control of the Net."

Comments

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they can get some of the outdated and impractical copyright laws changed. I imagine they've probably got enough dirt on every member of Congress to get things done.

Re:Good

[nametaken]

Maybe they can get some of the outdated and impractical copyright laws changed. I imagine they've probably got enough dirt on every member of Congress to get things done.

That's what we pray for, because "In Google we trust".

But honestly, when's the last time you heard of a major corporation actively and intentionally influencing American politics for the direct benefit of consumers?

Google always has been, and always will be, looking out for themselves first. The only question now is whether or not they'll hurt us in the process. It might be a bleak outlook on politics and the corporate world but I think its realistic.

Quite frankly

[twiztidlojik]

Quite frankly, I'm surprised a company with that kind of revenue stream DIDN'T have a lobbyist in washington.

What The Hell??!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Among its efforts, the government has worked to shield private U.S. companies from demands by the United Nations and other countries for multilateral control of the Net."

I didn't see this mentioned in the article at all. Please somebody show me where that is stated. Is the submitter just making this up out of his ass? And anyway, what the fuck does it have to do with google

And besides, that statement makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsover. How in God's Green Earth can the US government shield US companies in the DNS fight? They're no involved.

The submitter is obviously trolling to instigate yet another US vs. the world fight since US-bashing is so popular on slashdot. It's such a poor and transparent ploy.

You used to be cool, Google.

[BillyBlaze]

Before everyone can complain about Slashdot's irrational love for Google, let me make it known that it's coming to an end, at least for me. My biggest complaint about Microsoft hasn't really been so much about poor software that doesn't obey standards, or horrible market practices, but that they're actively spending huge amounts of money to influence the Government of my country in ways that directly benefit them, at my expense. It's a sad fact that money has a huge influence on government, and that Bill Gates has more influence on government that probably thousands of regular voters combined. Google used to be above all this, but if they're not?

Granted they haven't done anything yet. But simply by buying governments, they make it so that in order not to be evil, their politics have to agree with mine, which means they won't agree with someone else. And why would they agree with me? Hiring lobyists is clearly the kind of thing they had to do to placate shareholders, who only care about money and would see nothing wrong if Google elected a president to do nothing but take money from poor people and give it to Google. It seems like because of this effect, it's really hard for a publicly traded company to stay "Non-Evil" (tm) for long.

Re:You used to be cool, Google.

[Peet42]

Hold that thought...

But remember, it's also possible that Google will lobby to have unworkable copyright/intellectual property laws revoked, break up the teleco's stranglehold over cheap bandwidth, prevent the movie industry from dictating what you do with the DVD player you just bought or a myriad of other things that the US Gov't currently votes on without being particularly well-informed on the subject.

Me, I'll wait and see what happens before I start complaining. :)

Re:You used to be cool, Google.

[ScentCone]

but that they're actively spending huge amounts of money to influence the Government of my country in ways that directly benefit them

Does it every occur to you that Microsoft is thousands of people and millions of investors? Grandmothers, pension funds, yuppies, and plenty of Google and Novel investors also own their piece of MS. MS is people, just like Google is, GM is, and the mom and pop coffee shop down the street is. Why on earth would a company that has so much at stake, with hundreds of millions of customers around the world, not want to look out for itself within the context of how the government that's regulating the economy frames things? I wouldn't want to invest in, or base my business operations around products built/serviced by a company that doesn't care what the business climate looks like, or is willing to be steamrolled by the noisiest person that doesn't like them.

Hiring lobyists is clearly the kind of thing they had to do to placate shareholders, who only care about money and would see nothing wrong if Google elected a president to do nothing but take money from poor people and give it to Google.

"Clearly?" Is that really, really clear to you? And out of curiosity, how does a president go about taking money from poor people? Does he have pictures of all of the congressional reps and senators with goats or something? The president can't take money from anybody. He can't write tax law, he can't appropriate money. The only thing he can, within narrow bounds, direct cabinet officials to work within the framework established by congress to spend, or not spend as much, on certain domestic things. Not putting as much money into some specialized entitlement give-away is not the same as taking money "from" poor people.

Regardless: our current form of government would be pointless without a functioning economy. The economy completely depends upon employment and productivity. Those companies (like Google) that have a major role to play in productivity can and should make sure that they're heard by people who are working on laws and regulations that impact how they, their employees, their users, and industry do what they do. It's not "buying" government to make yourself heard or to make sure that people with a rational clue about what you do are responsible for the legal framework within which it's done. Doing nothing about it - the opposite of the employees and owners/investors in a company "buying" that voice - is the positve act of giving away that voice to someone else. You know, like to someone who thinks the internet is nothing but a porn vehicle and should be shut down, etc. Would you rather than Google stay at arm's length from politics and give up ground to crazies? I wouldn't.

Re:Google goes to Washington?

[kibbey]

Micr$oft hired platoons of lobbyists years ago.

Where did this text come from?

[Teun]

"Among its efforts, the government has worked to shield private U.S. companies from demands by the United Nations and other countries for multilateral control of the Net."

I can't find it in TFA so was it included by the DIY News or CowboyNeal?

Anyway, does the author mean to say Google would rather not be protected by the Washington government of the day?

Personally I find commercial interests should be banned to get involved in politics at any level, in a democracy they don't have voting rights so it's none of their business.

brilliant

[scooviduvoctagon]

"Google sees a presence in Washington as a necessity as government becomes more involved in the Net's development." So.... google goes and lobbies to further involve the government in the Net's development - thereby lending even more weight and leverage to the very phenomena that caused them to hire some weasel out of washington in the first place - brilliant. Don't feed the Government. It only encourages them.

Not Making Microsoft's Mistake

[donnacha]

One of the biggest mistakes Microsoft made was not realizing early enough that they needed to pump a substantial slice of their pie to DC. If they had had an astute lobbyist on the ground, making "campaign contributions" to both sides, there never would have been a government investigation, they wouldn't have lost momentum through having their attention diverted and their public image wouldn't have taken quite such a beating - who will ever forget the belligerent attitude of Gates' deposition, who could have failed to smile at the embarrassing memos that were trawled up?

As a side note for non-US citizens: in America corruption has been legalized in the form of campaign contributions. To get elected, politicians must spend vast sums of money on TV advertising. The airwaves that get TV to the masses nominally belong to "the people" but are sold off to major corporations such as GE for a pittance. The corportations then create programming that desperately pursues a mass audience (i.e. quality is not enough, as in the case of Firefly, cancelled before even finishing it's 1st season). The corporations then sell that mass audience back to the politicians in the form of short adverts. The adverts are extremely expensive but the experience of the past half century has consistently shown that the frequency of adverts has a vital role in winning office.

This is great for the corporations because, far more importantly than the revenue that they earn from this exploding advertising spend, it means that no politician has a realistic chance of getting into power unless he is getting lots of corporate campaign contributions (corporate contributions dwarf personal) and, therefore, no representative of the people will ever be able to truly work in the people's interests. Both of the main American parties are equally dependent on this system and, therefore, the only real differences that can exist between them are presentational.

The problem with Microsoft was that they got big so quickly that they didn't have time to take the hint and assume their role in this particular circle of corruption. One of the first things they did when the Clinton administration turned on them was to hire the most expensive lobbyists they could find and start spraying contributions in all directions., guaranteeing that next adminstration, Republican or Democrat, would step down the legal attack.

Google is making sure that they don't make the same mistake.

Wth?

[A beautiful mind]

"Among its efforts, the government has worked to shield private U.S. companies from demands by the United Nations and other countries for multilateral control of the Net."

Says who, and why?

It seems to me that a multilateral (global) control of the dns servers could only be a good thing for global companies.

congressmen going cheap, three for a dollar

[peterjhill2002]

Not a huge deal people... Yes, lobbyists can be bad... I don't know who is looked up to more... pimps, used car salesmen, crack dealers, or lobbyists... ... but... eff also has lobbyists, there has to be some linux centered lobbyists around d.c... it is a sad fact that money buys power and our congress is cheap.. I am surprised though it took this long to get google to have a three person office inside the beltway...

I just hope they can stop some of the insane things that other lobbyist try to put through.. like flags on digital tv content... bad congresscritter bad... sit in a corner in timeout for two minutes.

It doesn't mention it, he was trolling

[NigelJohnstone]

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

"Net neutrality. As voice, video, and data rapidly converge, Congress is rewriting U.S. telecommunications laws and deregulating broadband connectivity, which is largely a good thing. But in a country where most citizens have only one or two viable broadband options, there are real dangers for the Internet: Should network operators be able to block their customers from reaching competing websites and services (such as Internet voice calls and video-on-demand)? Should they be able to speed up their own sites and services, while degrading those offered by competitors? Should an innovator with a new online service or application be forced to get permission from each broadband cable and DSL provider before rolling it out? Or, if that's not blunt enough for you, what's better: [a] Centralized control by network operators, or [b] free user choice on the decentralized, open, and astoundingly successful end-to-end Internet? (Hint: It's not [a].)"

The Advent Of Liberation Of Knowledge Is Nigh

[mercedo]

This is a very good constructive initiative. The price of book in paper includes cost to bind a book, cost of paper, printing, and then loyalty of copyright. In the age of the Internet almost limitless proliferation of copyrighted materials can be done, the price of book should exclude other than loyalty of copyright. I hope the price of knowledge's going to be much cheaper than the price of book in paper. Welcome.

Re:Google Goes to Washington

[mcc]

Yeah OK Microsoft is the Evil empire, but remember the Evil Empire brought you Home PC's Free Internet browsers, Human Friendly Operating systems etc..

Microsoft would certainly like you to think so.

However anyone who was actually around when these things first appeared remember things more like this:

People other than Microsoft brought us home PCs, free internet browsers, human friendly operating systems etc; and then Microsoft hijacked these things, and made it impossible for anyone else to become powerful in those markets.

I am quite confident that if Microsoft ever does defeat google, ten years later people will be ardently insisting Microsoft invented the search engine.

Our Great Democracy

[malsdavis]

Ahh, great to see our great nation's "democratic" process at work. If only I was rich enough to afford my own lobbyist, then I could get that bit extra say in government also.

Hang on that doesn't sound like the democracy they talked about in school!

Re:"Shield" private companies?

[Merovign]

Umm, did I miss the part where Bush did, or threatened to, or mentioned "shutting down the internet?"

How would he gain control over foreign servers? Would he nationalize the backbone companies?

Who's more likely to tamper with the nameservers (or the backbone), the US, China, Cuba, Iran?

It's a "brutal power grab" for those in charge of the nameservers to NOT give them up? How can a NON-CHANGE be a power grab?

Nameservers and ICANN are a "stranglehold?"

Does all that really make sense to you?

The US has a pretty good (not perfect) record on letting internet traffic and sites do what they want, here or abroad. And a generally pretty good record on free speech. Neither can be said for one of the biggest pushers for "WICANN," China, or a lot of their followers-on. Matter of fact, Europe ain't too hot on free speech eaither, though nothing like China or Cuba.

Capitalism works sometimes...

[cgenman]

While capitalism is predisposed to breaking down into monopoly states, sometimes it works. If Google works to break Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop, lobbies for fair use rights to index and playback arbitrary content, fights the kinds of software patents that have been weilded against it, Google could both do a lot of good while looking out for its own self-interest.

One of the nice things about the 'net is that nobody has figured out a way to get a solid monopoly lock. People aren't tied to your hardware, or software, or anything. The only thing Google could hold over you to stay would be Gmail and other data that you submit to them, but that wouldn't preclude you from shopping at Amazon.com. The fact that Google is doing so well despite the default search engine on all windows installs being MSN should show you how much power the consumer has in this area.

I'm willing to risk it. Google has shown remarkable desire to do no evil, and is one of the only major forces in tech, or for that matter corporate America, who believes that. We need the help.

Re:You joke, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything like a Google for classified data would be so highly classified only the President and close advisers could use it, which defeats the whole purpose of having such an engine, since those high officials aren't the ones who would be using it. They read briefs prepared by others.

Funny story, really. I work for NSA, and we have the Google search appliance index all of our internal classified networks. If it's cleared for TOP SECRET, then aggregation isn't really gonna increase it all that much. As a NB, what would the point be of information so classified ONLY the President can know? Where are the analysts to tell him what it means?

-- Anonymous Coward, with a capital Coward.

Re:Google Goes to Washington

[Anonymous Coward]

You have it wrong, my friend. [...] Microsoft made home computers a commodity item.

You're welcome to your own private ignorance, but don't insult others by trying to force it upon them.