Slashdot Mirror
Google's New Lobbying Power in Washington
*SECADM writes "Learning from Microsoft's error, Google is building a lobbying power house in Washington." From the Washington Post article: Two years ago, Google was on the verge of making that Microsoft-like error. Davidson, then a 37-year-old former deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology, was the search-engine company's sole staff lobbyist in Washington. As recently as last year, Google co-founder Sergey Brin had trouble getting meetings with members of Congress. To change that, Google went on a hiring spree and now has 12 lobbyists and lobbying-related professionals on staff here — more than double the size of the standard corporate lobbying office — and is continuing to add people.
He's just one US citizen. If he wants to have influence on Congress he can vote like the rest of us. The fact that he can't get personal meetings with them should be surprising or distressing, regardless of his net worth, given how difficult it would be for everyone else.
It's a sad indictment of politicians that they need lobbyists to tell them what to think, rather than going out and actually talking to their constituents. Democracy is supposedly representative of the people - the skewing of this system towards serving only the wealthiest corporations is only going to take us to bad places.
Well, we are talking about Google here, right? Let's ask them how Google defines a lobbyist and what they think are the pros and cons of lobbyists.
;-)
What better source than straight from the horse's mouth?
They don't have to do evil. That's what the lobbyists are for.
*gasp* Google paying out the nose for influence in Washington? Its almost like they are your standard multi billion international corporation.
Lets give it a rest already, this doesnt make Google evil. It just means that they are like any other company which is something nonfanboys have known all along. Do we need to see a headline every time a tech company hires a handful of lobbyists? What makes Google special?
Perhaps I could have worded that better, with more detail of what I meant. I meant sharing information with the public in general. Issues like (copyrighted) songs being played in the background of a YouTube video for example, or the use of thumbnails to copyrighted images have come up in legal controversies. I meant information sharing in the sense of information generally being free (and shared), as opposed to overly controlled.
No I did not mean information sharing like with 3rd party cookie. Sorry, I should have worded that better.
Hiring lobbyist doesn't make a company 'Evil', it makes it smart.
To determine if they are evil look at what they are lobbing for.
Perhaps if more people learned that, they6would get together and hire there own lobbyists.
You want to add a speed bump to your street? you go talk to the city. AKA lobbying.
You want congress to take steps towards something you want, you write a letter. AKA lobby. Hell you might even be able to pay someone a few bucks to talk to a congress person instead of a letter.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Lobbyists are like advertising... nobody would pay for [ads or] lobbyists if they didn't work.
The problem is that "representing the people" has become a game.
Maybe we ought to just "draft" a congress. It probably wouldn't be worse than electing one of folks who want to be politicians.
As for the Senate, maybe we could just draft them too - from the pool of former drafted congress members who pass a post-service vote of confidence.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Ah the concept of "corporate personhood" rears it's ugly head. You sir, are individually a constituent of your district and a voter. Your corporation is not a constituent or a voter. The rest of it is rationalizing bribery and influence peddling.
As for crowing about how few people "call in," do Congressmembers really believe the only calls that should count are those drummed up by lobbying organizations? I'll bet most people here on Slashdot believe calling or writing a Congressmember, on any issue, would be futile / a waste of time.
Those are Google searches - not the definitions or opinions of Google itself (or it's constituent personell).
Back last year when the anti-net neutrality shit hit the fan, courtesy of at&t again, i said that these kind of things were possible to thwart more easily with lobbying. If there was sufficient lobby of google, yahoo and the like back then this thing would never come around even. Good to see that they have understood what to do and going for it. If, a country is run by representatives who are persuaded/bought, you need to stick to the custom yourself to get things done too.
Read radical news here
You're kidding me right? The mere use of lobbyists is enough for you to decide Google's an evil company?
Have a look at the blog, you can read about what those lobbyists are up to. That's a major difference. The RIAA is evil - when they were busy turning singing into an act for hire, so they could own an artist indefinitely, do you think they were blogging about their intentions and notifying the American people? No. In fact, they did everything they could to hide it so it could torpedo its way into law before it was too late.
Evil companies and organizations like the RIAA are out there buying their way into legislation that gives them an unfair lock on all sorts of things. It's a broken system that works on money. Google is paying to keep it fair - the way it should be. It sucks it takes lobbyists to do it, but Google is working to keep the very worst ideas out of Congress. Or did you think Net Neutrality would just solve itself?
The GP is modded insightful, which is outright wrong. While the GP may be funny, he conflates a google search with google's opinion. The parent post points this out, and is modded flamebait? The parent should be modded insightful or interesting, not the GP.
I find it absolutely mindboggling that not only has this been advanced as a serious suggestion, but enough people apparently agree with you that you've been modded up to +5 without anyone taking issue with it. Individuals bribing elected representatives is every bit as morally corrupt as companies doing so (and anyone who tried to claim that promising campaign contributions in return for votes on legislation isn't bribery needs to go look up bribery in a dictionary).
Else what the hell's the point of having a representative democracy in the first place? The whole idea of electing a representative to speak and vote on your behalf is rather lost is the representative then goes and votes on the basis who whoever promises them more money on each piece of legislation! Unless you perhaps think we should cut out the middle man, junk the whole democracy idea, and declare a plutocracy, with all legislation decided on the basis of some kind of pecunial referendum?
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.