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

Quite frankly

[twiztidlojik]

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

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.

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.

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.