Slashdot Mirror
Don't Be Evil — Hire It Done
MarkusQ writes, "The NY Times among others is reporting that Google is ramping up its lobbying clout (registration or bugmenot required). The 'Don't be evil' search engine company has hired the infamous astroturfing and dirty tricks firm Direct Connect, Inc. You may remember DCI from their recent attempts to pass off their 'Penguin Army' video as a product of some lone wit, unconnected with their client, Exxon. Or their involvement in Microsoft's 'even dead voters love Microsoft' campaign. With a staff of veterans in the biz (such as Chris 'Swiftboat' LaCivita and Jim 'Electioneering' Tobin), led by Tom 'Big Tobacco on the Dole' Synhorst, I'm sure DCI will be able to give Google whatever they're paying them for. The question is, what are they paying them for? And does 'Don't be evil' imply 'Don't pay professionals to be evil for you?' Or could there possibly be a non-evil reason to hire these clowns?"
Corporations do shitty things to increase their profit margins! Shocking, I know! Come on, do people honestly believe that Google is some sort of sintly organization? Their goal - no, their legal responsibility - is to maximize the profit of their shareholders. Same as any other company. Get over them already.
Just because you hire a firm known to have pulled dirty tricks for dirty companies like Exxon and Microsoft doesn't mean that they'll necessarily pull dirty stuff on behalf of all their clients.
If pulling crap would make their client angry, they won't do it. Not to mention, that irrespective of "dirty tactics" the firm might be simply the best at getting the job done.
Don't imply that Google is or will be doing anything wrong with this company until some negative action is taken. This company will do what it takes to make their client happy. If "Do No Evil" is what makes Google happy, then they will do their job within the confines of that model.
Let's just wait and see.
Sugapablo
I just love how innovative companies like Google are forced to spend all this money on lobbyists just so Congress doesn't screw them over. Why isn't it all spent on making a better product? Because some people gave the government so much power beyond its strict Constitutional limits, which given enough time would mean lobbyists would be fighting over all that juicy government money and to shackle their competitors. "It's okay though, we can give the government all this power, we just have to, you know, limit the lobbyists!" YOU CAN'T. With that much money at stake, they will steamroll over whatever petty contributions limits and ethics rules you set up.
Companies can compete on the market, or in lobbying ability. Thanks, voters, for making the latter so ripe.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Machine Politics is about graft. You vote for me, I'll give you a job. You don't vote for me, I'll make sure we pass a law to put you out of business.
Google probably started talking to some politicians about Net Neutrality(or something else that effects their business) and the politician said "Huh? I can't hear you. Maybe you ought to drop my buddies at DCI some ka-ching to help fix my hearing problem."
See: K-Street Project
Washington DC has vastly increased in size in the past six years, and it's all been lobbyists, shills and political hacks. Lot's of people profiting at the tax payers expense.
If Google didn't hire them, then there's every possibility that a competing interest would hire them instead. There's a lot of legislation bouncing around that affects Google directly and its users indirectly by weakening privacy laws. When the lynch mob is headed into town, you better hire gunslingers, not the local minister.
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
Given the lobbying firepower being deployed by the anti-net-neutrality side, if Google, usually portrayed as pro-neutrality, is serious about a pro-neutrality stance as something more than a quixotic PR stand, it needs the capacity to go toe-to-toe with the cable and telephone industries.
And that means you need people that are familiar with the broadest possible spectrum of lobbying tactics, capable of advising on how to counter them, and capable of deploying whatever tactics Google is willing to go with in response.
Anything less is bringing a knife to a gun fight.
This isn't about campaign contributions to parties, this is about hiring a company of professional astroturfers and generally dirty-tricks experts. You know, people who _are_ the evil kind that Google supposedly distanced itself from.
You can't balance _that_ like that, or not so easily. This isn't D&D. You can't say, basically, "oh, I've done 3 good deeds this month, for 4 'good' alignment points total, so I'm entitled to gut two orphans for 2 'evil' points each." RL doesn't work that way. Al Capone's kitchen soups, very good deeds as they may be, don't simply balance out that he was an evil psychopath the rest of the time.
But more importantly, Google's motto doesn't work that way. It says "do no evil", _not_ "keep the balance by doing as much evil as good stuff". So exactly how and what are they, in your opinion, balancing there? Surely not their motto and promise.
I don't care if it's for Google itself or for some political party or whatever. Evil is evil. Evil done to "balance" something else is still evil by any definition. And hiring evil people to do evil for you, is still doing evil.
We have a long history of laws and precedents, in both criminal and military justice, saying just that: you're personally responsible for the people you paid or commanded. We've had plenty of Mafia Dons trying to claim basically, "see, I never hurt a fly. It was my subordinates that shot people and threw people in lakes with cement shoes. But me? I never personally even slapped anyone." And society eventually decided that, no, it doesn't work your way. If _your_ goons did evil stuff, _you_ are responsible for that.
Or we had military commanders willing to claim basically, "nah, I never shot a civillian. It was my soldiers that shot and raped civillians. I was just standing there and watching them." And again, society decided that it doesn't work that way. If they're your subordinates, you're responsible for them. It's your duty to stop them if they do something evil.
So, ok, astroturfing isn't subject to criminal laws or anything, but from a moral standpoint it's the same thing: if Google pays to get action X done, Google is morally responsible for it. You can't claim the moral high ground by just paying others to do your evil stuff.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I am glad to actually get a comment before the masses of Slashdot jump on their new favorite villain Google.
But let's be honest. The "Don't be Evil" motto was made when Google was a startup of 50 or less people. Everything is based off an ideal in a startup because you want to change the world. In order to do that you need passionate and idealistic people. It was the same in the two startups I have worked for as well and it will be the same in my current startup. Nobody changes the world without some ideals. Nobody wants to work like crazy without a sense that you are going to be doing something profound, something worthy. Everybody wants to be a knight in shining armor. Maybe that is a bad side effect from the amount of RPG's good software developers play.
The unfortunate part of it is when you become a big corporation you are pulled in a lot of directions and sometimes the ideals you were founded on take a back-seat. This becomes especially true when you are publicly traded and have wall street to deal with. The fact is Google is now headed by more than just the two founders as a matter of fact I think they are probably just content to sit back and do what they do best develop new technologies. The actual Google is run by a bunch of savvy businessman who are there to leverage every single aspect of the company and a large part of that is lobbying.
Software patents - check
Using their user's information for competitive advantage - check
Being secretive about changes to their product - check
Being one of the most secretive but somehow comes across open and sharing company - check
I think it's time to take the "Don't be Evil" slogan for what it is, just clever marketing. There is simply nothing most of us can do. I am tied into Google probaby more than others and I don't care because if it wasn't them it would be somebody else who is analyzing my data, hosting my emails, storing my chat's, selling me viagra (oh wait not that last part).
Software Defined RFID - The Rifidi Emulator
I'll have you know that I spend close to an hour writing the story submission, and pointedly looked for the most non-partisan links I could find. I specifically focused on their corporate activities (with the exception of the Tobin, who I included because of the criminal activity involved).
For the record, I am a Republican, and have been all my life. But I've been an American for even longer, so don't assume that that means I will blindly ignore this sort of thing either just because "Republicans" are doing it. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter what color jersey you wear if you are acting to subvert our democracy.
For me, the issue here is simple: these people are good at only one thing, trying to manipulate our elected officials into thinking that they are doing our will when in fact they are not. I assume that their party affiliation is as flexible as their ethics, and don't put any more trust in it than it deserves.
--MarkusQ