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Google Goes to Washington

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the red-white-and-click-through dept.

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."

17 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. They'll be lonely by republican+gourd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A progressive company with fairly reasonable takes on copyright and employment that isn't going to be lobbying from a position of entitlement-because-we've-always-made-money-the-sa me-way? They'll be so lonely... Nobody will want to get drunk on the steps of the Capitol with them except the Kennedy's.

  2. everyone is buying power while they can by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Humanists in America just appointed a new lobbyist to represent
    athiest biews in Washington. I heard these days everyone is trying to buy power
    in DC because the currency is rising rapidly. Providing the salary apropriate for an
    experienced political fixer plus the enormous
    costs of travel and expenses make it no trivial matter. To be in this game you need big funding.
    The sad thing is this is a sign that government over there is no longer representative. Companies,
    campaign groups and NGOs in the USA all have to stump up lots of cash if they want a voice. It really
    looks like a system of 'paid for government' from here. Google may well acheive many of their
    aims but the fact remains, it is not democracy or even feintly representative government.

  3. Google goes to Washington? by bogaboga · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Hah! Microsoft will follow suit. I am sure Ballmer will be packing his bags soon.

    Question is:

    How can I have a share on this?

  4. Re:And in other news... by dana340 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm curious, do you think Google is going to offer their own Linux, or buy another company. I think that Google sees a light at the end of the tunnel. And that would be: come into the business market by offering services to businesses. They would charge for these services, and they could even offer hardware solutions running Linux, optimized to work with web based applications that Google will host, or could be hosted locally via Google powered servers (not everyone has enough bandwidth for everyone in their organization to run web apps). I see a smart thing they could do like buying Novell (and SuSE). Anybody else see the trend? What implications does this have for IBM, presently offering Novell and SuSE options?

    --
    "10001110101 - periodic table with a centerpiece of mind" -Clutch
  5. You joke, but.... by clark625 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm in the Army currently, and my office computer has access to a bunch of Department of Defense internal networks that suposedly has all the data I could ever want. The problem is it's poorly indexed. So, if I need a particular obscure form or technical manual, it can be near impossible to find. What scares me is that I can often go to Google and find the data I want (or at least a link to a secure server with the data).

    google.gov may seem silly to those in the private sector... but if Google did index private government and military sites, and allowed access only to authorized individuals, I wouldn't complain. Heck, I'd be happy at my new efficiency.

    --
    Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
    1. Re:You joke, but.... by generic-man · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Couldn't the various agencies get Google Search Appliances and then enable searching across all their various networks?

      (Google would be done faster than the government anyway, even after Google's mandatory 6-year beta period.)

      --
      For more information, click here.
    2. Re:You joke, but.... by Stonehand · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Do Google's search algorithms make sense for an intranet in which you probably don't have quite the diversity of link counts? On the web, you have pages which have massive in-links and pages which have extremely few, but on an intranet, is that a reliably available and reasonable indicator of authority?

      --
      Only the dead have seen the end of war.
    3. Re:You joke, but.... by Kiaser+Wilhelm+II · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I dont know how the search appliances work differently than Google.com, but what I do know is that they work damned well at our company for indexing informration just like Google.com does for the whole net.

      If Google is marketing these appliances at various sized companies, then I would imagine they would have taken the time to make the algorithims appropriate for the target audience.

      --
      Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
      Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
    4. Re:You joke, but.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Google is on the Secret and well as Top Secret networks. I believe it is run by Intellink on both.

  6. Free speech by andersh · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I think you can safely call the French a paragon of free speech! After all where do you think those ideals came from? Some people forget quickly:

    French Revolution
    Looking to the United States Declaration of Independence for a model, on August 26, 1789, the Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Like the U.S. Declaration, it comprised a statement of principles rather than a constitution with legal effect.

    Causes of the French Revolution include the following:
    # Bad economical situation, partly because of France's involvement and aid in the American Revolution.
    # Resentment of seigneurialism by peasants, wage-earners, and, to a lesser extent, the bourgeoisie
    # Resentment at noble privilege and dominance in public life by the ambitious professional classes.
    # Influence of the American Revolution.

    1. Re:Free speech by ScrewMaster · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, and they make good wine. The parent's point is still well-taken. I hear all the words that the EU is spouting over this issue, and I don't accept them. Europe and it's allies in this matter may not trust us to manage the root servers, but honestly ... given all the posturing and threatening attitudes they have been exhibiting lately I don't trust them either. Not their decidedly anti-American motivations nor their future intentions.

      They claim they are worried that the U.S. might attempt to control or influence DNS in a manner detrimental to their interests. We have not done so, have expressed zero intentions of ever doing so, and are simply not interested in doing so. Why would we want to do that? The economic and cultural benefits of the World Wide Web to the United States have been spectacular and there really would be no good reason for us to screw things up. Complain about ICANN if you wish, and there is a lot to complain about, but it was a good-faith effort on the part of the United States to involve other nations in Internet governance. That's a HELL of a lot more than than anyone else would have done.

      Look past the words. This multinational power grab has more to do with the fact that the United States has not attempted to "control" the Web (and I say "Web", not "Internet" since the two are not synonymous and we are only discussing the root servers here.) In fact the U.S. has let anyone and everyone (including the Chinese, French, Iranians and North Koreans the GP mentioned) use the Domain Name System for any purpose they choose. That seriously bothers a lot of governmental types (including your precious French) who would ever so much rather that governments get to decide what their people can and cannot do with this new communications medium, not the people themselves. The substantial efforts that China is making in that regard (the Great Firewall, crackdowns, prison sentences, etc.) should tell anyone with half a brain that the openness and fundamentally egalitarian nature of the Web are not welcomed by everyone.

      Face it, the Internet took most of the governments of this world by complete surprise. If the U.S. had simply given China or any other government the authority to remove DNS records at will none of them would care who "runs" the root servers. But we didn't ... we kept them wide open, for the benefit of all. Consequently, we have to be removed so that those other governments can impose controls more to their liking. To all you Europe Union folks lurking here on Slashdot, ask yourselves this question: would you rather have {insert your government here} in charge of your DNS (effectively determining what sites your browser can see) or the United States, which has kept the Web free and open? I have a pretty good idea what a lot of Chinese citizens would say.

      A larger problem is going to be when these dipstick politicians allow the system to be fragmented and substantially less effective. Believe me, they'll do it, because political will and a desire for power frequently don't acknowledge reality. I don't think they realize yet just how powerful a tool the Internet is, and not just in terms of freedom-of-speech issues and international commerce. Scientific and technological (and hence economic) development has become heavily dependent upon sophisticated communications and will suffer if the global Internet becomes sufficiently fractured. That means real jobs and real lives are going to be affected. If there was ever a case of "for God's sake just leave well enough alone" this is it.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  7. Invented by who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The Internet was not just a US project. The US invented some parts - and others in cooperation with Western nations. But then again I imagine China, Russia and Africa did NOT contribute :)

    Remember that the most significant part, the Web, was invented by a European researcher at CERN in Europe. I know the Internet is more than the Web - however tell that to your congressman.

  8. Google already has an EU lobbyist by FlorianMueller · · Score: 3, Interesting
    In the build-up to the European Parliament's second-reading vote, a Google lobbyist also became active in Brussels (the de-facto capital of the EU). Patricia Moll previously worked for Microsoft as Government Affairs Manager. If you search for her name on Google in connection with Microsoft's name, you can still find various articles and other references.

    Since Google had not been involved in the earlier stages of the debate on that European software patent directive, they didn't want to publicly state their position on that controversial issue. However, Patricia was in close contact with the FFII, a non-governmental organization that opposes software patents, as well as some companies that were at least somewhat critical of software patents.

    It seems that Google mostly lobbied for a far-reaching interoperability privilege. That's important to them so they can, for instance, perform certain operations on PDF files as part of their search services. Some people said that Google was also critical of the idea to legalize software patents in Europe, and that may have been the case, but none of the MEPs who I asked was able to confirm that Google took a critical position on software patents (I didn't ask that question to many politicians, so the fact that no one confirmed it may not mean much).

  9. Lets see how we at Slashdot will look at this by billnad · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Google has easily replaced Microsoft as the most powerful computer company in the world and we are now seeing them flex that power. There are two ways in a vacuum to look at this:
    1. Google is looking after the people by using their force for good and making sure the bad government and other corporations are kept in check.
    2. Google has moved to the dark side and are in bed with big government and big business.

    Of course we do not live in a vacuum and the reality is probably that Google really has to protect it's position now. As we have all seen over the last 30 years in this industry just becuase you are number one now does not mean you will be tomorrow and the big owners of Google of course recognize that and are going to make sure they are being spoken for when anti-trust, monopoly and copyrights are being talked about in the back rooms of Washington

  10. Now how'd the U.N. sneak in here? by mcc · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The article summary has an odd little sentence suddenly announcing that one of the issues relevant to Google's lobbying is the U.S. "shielding" "companies" from "multilateralism". But the article doesn't mention the U.N. at all, or anything related to them or the EU or the DNS internationalization dispute, and while Google News has lots of stories about Google hiring this lobbyist, searches for "google U.N." or "google EU" turn up nothing whatsoever relevant. The only specific thing Google says in the linked article about their motivations in hiring this lobbyist:
    "Google believes in protecting copyrights while maintaining strong, viable fair use rights in this digital age," McLaughlin wrote.
    Looks like somebody was trying to use the slashdot front page as a soapbox for their belief that evil "multilateralism" is something U.S. companies need to be "shielded" from, and then subtly imply that Google agrees with them?

    Interesting, because it seems to me that the only thing the U.S. government is "shielding" from the international community is its own power. It also seems to me that if instead of demanding government control over the root servers and touching off this spat with the EU/UN, the Administration had just handed control of the DNS servers over to ICANN like it originally promised, U.S. companies would be the primary beneficiaries. ICANN is certainly an entity with problems, but right now it is nothing if not an industry body.
    --
    Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
  11. Re:You used to be cool, Google. by geminidomino · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    Right after they finish hand-delivering blankets to the poor, and stopping off to help an old lady across the street...

    Google's lobbying will be done in such a way that it helps them, not make the laws "not broken." Copyright/IP laws? Google will want exceptions for search engines put in, not to have the laws revoked. Why should google give an airborne copulation at a ventrally rotating pastry about DVD players?

  12. Re:Capitalism works sometimes... by nametaken · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You may very well be right. However, the scenario you're talking about where Google helps us because they're helping themselves is what prompted me to write this sentence the way I did:

    actively and intentionally influencing American politics for the direct benefit of consumers

    It worries me, because what Google wants this week might benefit me (if even by accident), but what if what Google wants next week hurts me? Quite suddenly they go from heros to just another hyper-mega-globocorp stomping all over my rights for a few extra percentage points.

    I just get really nervous about companies with lots of cash pushing lobbyists on my representatives (not that any of my current representatives really represent me).