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Google Founders' Jets Caught On WSJ's Radar
theodp writes "Via an FOIA request, the Wall Street Journal acquired records of every private aircraft flight recorded in the FAA's air-traffic management system for 2007 through 2010, using them to build a private jet tracker database. Among the high fliers who found their records unblocked were Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, whose 767 and Gulfstream reportedly burned an estimated 52,000 gallons of aviation fuel and $430,000 on two round-trips from the U.S. mainland to Tahiti to catch last summer's total eclipse of the sun. A Google spokeswoman confirmed the pair's jaunt, but added that Page and Brin mitigated the greenhouse gas emissions from their aircraft usage by purchasing an even greater amount of carbon offsets. Tech-boom billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban seemed unfazed by the prospect of his past plane movements becoming public: 'I have a plane,' Cuban quipped. 'I bought it so I could use it. Shocking, isn't it?'"
... but if Google's founders can't fly to Tahiti to watch an astronomical event, then who can?
So who of us would not fly every now and then on a private plane in order to travel through the world? Isn't this also the case for many polititians, especially "important" ones?
Honestly, I would do it.
... summed it up brilliantly. This is like someone discovering Google Maps for the first time and spying on the backyards of the wealthy. Nothing of real interest here except the obvious, "Why is the WSJ so interested in tracking private citizens given the fact that it was FREAKING out over 'privacy' issues, like *gasp* ad companies track people, and the fact that it is conservative, and isn't that all about personal freedom, 'don't take mah gun, git yer camera outta my backyard'?"
I8-D
Who cares? They paid for the jet and they paid for the fuel.
It is not like they were burning that fuel for the sake of burning it and this was day in and day out. They wanted to get somewhere so they had to use fuel. This is true of pretty much everyone living in a first world nation today.
who cares? if they were really green they could have bought the carbon offsets even if they didn't fly.
but really, why not? it was a total eclipse. and it's tahiti. it's a much better way to spend than going to lapland for christmas(seriously).
there's risk in flying too.
friggin expensive though. it's the shareholders who should be nitpicking about this. and the greenies should inform us about where they bought that fuel from, not about shady carbon offsets money transfer deals.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
...and NOT because they used their jet.
"A Google spokeswoman confirmed the pair's jaunt, but added that Page and Brin mitigated the greenhouse gas emissions from their aircraft usage by purchasing an even greater amount of carbon offsets."
I lost respect for them because they subscribe to ManBearPig's farcical religion that tells them they can cleanse themselves of their environmental sins if they purchase carbon indulgences. The whole notion of carbon indulgences is fucking retarded. It's not as if their jet left a trail of elemental carbon floating in the atmosphere for all eternity. It likely produced some carbon-containing pollutants - but guess what also does... BREATHING! Every living organism contains carbon, so the idea of somehow trying to "offset" it is nonsense. They probably bought their indulgences from one of those companies that burns down forests in South America just so they can have some land to plant trees on to assuage the self-inflicted angst and guilt of rich white liberal Americans.
Props to Mark Cuban for not being a pussy about using HIS jet.
What a useless "Ooooh, lookie, I can feel good about myself now!!!" scam.
Mr. Cuban, I will probably never even desire my own jet, and I feel like that if you are flying you really should use commercial. But I appreciate the fact that you call it like you see it. I'm glad to see you just own it and go with it.
I'm not as big a fan of the "carbon credits." I understand that these credits go towards promoting carbon reduction, but the system pretty much dictates "I'm rich, so I can buy my morality. See, when you have enough money, you don't need to reduce usage. You just pay others to clean up for you."
What paranoia! How many terrorists do you think there actually are, and why would they waste their time on plotting to "off" someone who my grandma probably hasn't even heard of? It's this sort of thinking that, for example, allows governments to implement the ban on liquids in airplanes, and not rescind it even in the face of evidence. Sorry, but can we think before knee-jerking* terrorism into the debate? * (I think I just verbed a noun, by the way)... .
They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
Right, so should we ban planes, or databases? Well, databases aren't that dangerous, you can't blow up towers in major cities with a database (friends who work with Oracle DBs may object to that, however).
So, we'll state that planes are bad because tewowiztz can use them to kill people. So, lets ban them! Then trains will be the next logical target. Ban those. Then boats, ban ban ban! Then trucks, ban. Then cars, ban. Then anywhere people ride their bikes, ban those too. Then people will be forced to walk, lock them up at home I guess.
I know, since the TSA stops tons of tewowiztz, we should probably just put up TSA checkpoints _everywhere_. At the mall, every on/off ramp, local bars, bike trails, etc. Anywhere people travel/congregate, that'll keep us safe. We'll probably have to come up with a good ID system so we can prove we are who we say we are at all stops. Probably institute a punishment for not having that ID on you at all times too, the cost to the taxpayer to pat them down, run background checks, etc, that'd be un-American.
Frankly, if you don't support this idea, you would be assisting the tewowiztz. You don't want to support them, do you? American's love freedom, and there is nothing more free than to know you're safe to walk around without having to worry about tewowiztz!
Or, we could just accept that there are bad people out there who will do whatever the please if given the chance. Ask yourself if the risk is worth it, much like driving, skydiving, etc, and continue to enjoy life until it inevitably ends!
I mean, the rich have privacy rights, too. Why the hell should everywhere they fly be made public?
I know these guys are rich, but this seems crazy. They are using their own private vehicles.
If the government allows this, what next? Listing every license plate through all the toll booths? What about the release of all the vehicular movement from the tracking devices in lower Manhattan? Private citizens should have some right not to be publicly tracked.
What about GPS tracking of cars for mileage taxation. If that ever happens, why shouldn't that data be released just like the airplane data.
...without these guys.
Okay, maybe not a screeching halt, but it'd get the wind knocked out of it (again). In the 60s, you could buy plane for a little more than a car cost; now a new 2-seat trainer will set you back at least $110k. Dozens of aviation companies sprung up from the 40s to the 60s, and even in 1980 we still had over 800,000 pilots in the US; today that number is under 600,000.
I spoke to a guy a few weeks ago who learned to fly in the late 70s and rented most of the planes he flew for $30-ish an hour. I just finished my private pilot cert and the cheapest plane around here (Lehigh Valley, PA) is about $86/hr, +$30 with the instructor. Aviation gas is about $6/gallon.
Small airports and flight schools don't make a lot of money teaching guys like me on two- or four-seat trainers, just like airplane companies don't make a lot of money selling them (Cessna even stopped production for a decade or so in the 80s). One of the few remaining markets with any margins left is business jets. I get that journalists can stir up populist outrage by talking about jaunts to Tahiti, but what would you rather rich people do with their money? Keep it? Spoil their kids with it? They're keeping pilots and airport attendants in their jobs, and if you're upset about the amount of fuel burned for such a frivolous adventure, well, the only way we're going to get better fuels and more efficient engines is if the people making them have money to invest in those things.
Is that another installment of Anonymous Coward's attempt to decomprehensiblize the English language?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Maybe they can get Lockheed to make them a private stealth airplane...
They bought their indulgences (carbon credits) from The Church of Global Warming. Their sins are forgiven.
Look, stupid new religions based on politics and pseudo-half-science I can abide, but I won't tolerate hypocrisy: if the Google boys put sufficient money in the collection plate, they should be cut sufficient slack. The consequences of indiscretion, today as in the Middle Ages, should only be for the poor...
Does this seem a bit hypocritical (at least perceived). I really don't care what they do with their money but this seems counter to their support of Anthropomorphic Global Warming. Oh sure they bought some carbon credits, but since the credits are a traded commodity, their extravagance resulted in higher prices for others seeking the same credits (supply-demand curve). Therefore, since others may not have purchased those credits due to the higher price, no overall benefit was realized. It seems to me that if you want to talk-the-talk then at least fly commercial first class - or shut the f%^& up. Flame suit on.
Conservative, mod down for violating
Why isn't where I click in a web browser also "private business?"
I think we need to follow and report where all the google, twitter and facebook folks are and what they are doing 24/7/365. The same for all our government workers and representatives.
* Follow them all.
* Post what they are doing in a central place for everyone to search.
Perhaps then, they will understand how important personal privacy online really is? Perhaps?
#1: the COSTS of fossil fuel use is socialized. that we all suffer for the burning of fossil fuels. while true, it's not a matter of jet exhaust being piped directly into your bedroom, it is much more abstract and complicated, and not a matter for great anger, unless you are a hysterical person
#2: that there is hypocrisy with the upper middle class and upper classes. they often are the greatest proponents of green living, while paradoxically being the greatest creators of pollution with their lifestyles. again, while true, there is nothing wrong with an aspirational ideology. that because you can't be 100% in compliance with your self-stated goals all at once, that your goals are somehow invalid. fucking bullshit. no one can ever try to improve their lives and their world unless they can do it all at once? really? that's a basis for criticizing someone?
i see this idea frequently in right wing thinking: al gore, for instance, flying on private jets and such. therefore, al gore needs to be heckled
no, right wing assholes
(as opposed to right wing intellectually honest folk: i'm not criticizing the idea of being right wing, i'm criticizing the idea of being an asshole on the right. there are assholes on the left too, but if you are an intellectually honest right winger, you have to admit that right now there are some real flaming losers in your ideological camp)
so look, right wing assholes:
there is nothing wrong with trying to make our existence less of a polluting one. your violent weather, particulate filled air, and contaminated rivers is a bad thing, no? and someone who tries to correct those SOCIALIZED costs on us all are not deserving of being criticized for their lofty goals, that benefits you and your children as well
sure, you can criticize any METHODS they might propose for achieving green living goals, but certainly you agree less pollution is a good thing, no? so why don't you keep your ignorant minds away from criticizing their truly great goals, and say something instead like:
"while i agree with al gore's desire to pollute less, his policy XYZ would actually impose economic costs out of proportion to the environmental costs we are discussing here"
THAT's a criticism i can accept from the right. but criticizing the very concept of environmentalism? no, that just makes you a blind asshole, deserving of no respect and nothing but derision for being so loud, and so ignorant
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
We can track their private aircraft locations. Great. Now if we can only track their email correspondences, web searches, cell phone locations and browsing history we can start to know as much about them as they know about us peasants.
So, the WSJ demonstrates what can be done with the privacy laws in place: namely violating other people's privacy. You find out and complain that they shouldn't have. Well, it happens all the time, but this time someone rich and famous is involved and it becomes a bad thing? How's that for brainwashing? Corporate America and the rich deserve privacy but others don't? Didn't the WSJ give a nice demonstration to the rich how they are affected by weak privacy laws? How's that not a good thing?
And since I'm ranting, not directly addressed to the OP: what is this thing about how it's unfair that they could buy carbon credits? Guess what? They also bought more fuel. It's just like their fuel was a bit more expensive. It's not like they could buy their moral superiority where others couldn't, just go buy carbon credits everytime you buy fuel. Of course, the world doesn't get better if you buy carbon credits and then burn fuel. It gets better if you buy carbon credits and then DON'T burn fuel. That's where the fallacy in that argument lies. The other fallacy is that there should be no god-given right to fly a private jet, but that's in the land of unsharp boundaries.
But there is one gem at least- more respect for Mark Cuban.
Linux computers, watercooled, photography
> on two round-trips from the U.S. mainland to Tahiti to catch last summer's total eclipse of the sun
Two round trips to see one event lasting six minutes (or less)? Either those jets are *really* fast or Page and Brin took separate planes.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
They were just gearing up for the new "Google Sky-ways" which will be the airplane equivalent to Google streets. Look forward to photos in the window of executives planes showing them in "compromising" situations soon.
You may not be religious but that doesn't mean your religious tendencies went away. They just get reapplied to other areas of your life.
So instead of sending money to Rome to get you out of purgatory and mitigate your guilt, let's send some secular outfit money to mitigate our environmental guilt. And as Rome had no real ability to take away your guilt, I wonder if the money will actually offset carbon emissions. Or will the money just end up in some guy's pocket?
Even if carbon offsets didn't work, I would do it as a company head just for the PR and avoiding negative press. If it actually does something as advertised, that's just gravy. Certified organic soy vegan gravy of course.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
No, as Oprah is now off the air. But I think you knew that.
Uh, "if it looks roughly mouse-shaped according to my infra-red sensitive pit, eat it"? --Chris Burke 09-08-10
I work in aviation and privacy is a big concern for some of our customers. Sometimes its for security concerns (the richer you are, the more people who want to make a mask with your face) and other times its for PR reasons (it doesn't look good when a company fires a few thousand employees in the name of cutting costs and then turns around and picks up a few new G550s - even though the new aircraft will save them money in the long run).
What these guys usually do is operate under a pseudonym. I don't know the full mechanics of it, but we regularly have customers with bogus names operating under bogus corporations. They get paint schemes totally devoid of any company logos or color schemes and doing a tail number search yields meaningless results. We know who they are, but on lookers, like in this case, will be totally in the dark.
Famous people usually don't care. While most celebrities can't even afford to look at a private jet, those that can often get their names painted all over the side of their aircraft as if saying 'look at the size of my penis!' The point being, if they want to be private, they can, but it seems these guys just don't care.
Now that isn't to say that they should have to go out of their way to maintain privacy. The FAA logs and keeps way too much information on these guys to the point it is downright scary. Of course, the relative safety of air travel has a lot to do with the strict controls of the FAA, but none the less, they need to be more concerned with privacy - if not for the sake of the VIPs, then for the safety of the couple dozen technicians and crew members maintaining and operating the aircraft.
So is this WSJ's pathetic attempt of "Look, exposure through data!" in the style of WikiLeaks? If they want to expose secrets, why not the secrets of government corruption and criminality that are being hidden?
Funny how they are just exposing information of their own costumer base, some of whom might cancel subscriptions or deny them interviews now. And for what? To win the hearts and minds of the shit-covered-peasants, who don't even read this magazine?
Maybe there's just not THAT much real corruption and criminality going on in U.S. government.
While its certainly interesting that they did this, its their Jet, their fuel, their money, they can do with it as they please.
I'd rather discuss all the trips that presidents, vice-presidents, speakers of the house, heads of the senate, and other self-important big-wigs spend at taxpayer expense.
That is a public matter and one worth discussing. Its our tax money paying for these military jets and fuel.
I'm pretty sure you completely missed his point.
What, the point that publishing names and data is the same as publishing data? He makes a huge leap. It's one thing to say "9 out of 10 teenagers are having sex right this second, mostly in cars." and another to say "Mary is having sex right now in a volkswagen behind a Taco Bell". To equate Google's privacy violations with this is counter-productive as anybody can say "the data has been scrubbed, it's totally different. Therefore you have nothing to complain about." He does himself an injustice by implying a searchable database of what people are doing is similar to what Google and other internet market research companies do.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Cuban summed it up nicely.
I was working under the understanding that his point was such a list may finally get people to respect privacy and it's value, not that such a list already existed or was an analogy for an existing list.
You've got a job that lets you telecommute from your zero-carbon-emission home, right?
Blar.
Those evil Google folks...time to break out the pitch forks, tar and feathers. We cannot allow them to take vacations to cool places. Who's with me on this. But please only bring recycled tar and synthetic feathers as we don't want to be featured in a WSJ article.
Fair enough. Misunderstandings and all. I interpretted his "Why is google watching my clicks not 'private'" subject to mean he viewed that as the online equivalent of offline location tracking. I'm probably mistaken.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Can't we through these carbon credit proponents in prison for running a scam?
What a bunch of crap.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
When it turns into a Red Super Giant. But, before that, the earth will certainly get smacked by an asteroid when Bruce WIllis ain't lookin'.
ANYWAY... I took my 4.5gph Pietenpol Air Camper for a joy flight over the weekend and had a great time doing it. Didn't even think twice about buying carbon credits to offset the fuel burn. Shocking, ain't it?
Marc Cuban bought a lifetime American Airlines ticket on some airline
Some airline? Lemme guess . . . was it American Airlines?
Like the WTC never even knew that place existed before 9/11. I still think that was a funny place for a terrorist to target.
If we are all concerned about the global warming and carbon footprint, why don't we stop using everything that burns fuel, like cars, buses, trains/subways, shut down all coal and nuclear powered power plants. We should all use bikes with recyclable parts or just walk wherever we want to. Sounds plausible? I didn't think so either. We should stop dissing rich people for their "polluting deeds" when we can't change our own!
Absolutely right. They know my GPS coordinates right now, and which websites I'm browsing, and who I got email from today.
Support SETI@home
I think nobody here gets the implication of this. Forget the straw man of rich people using their airplanes and have carbon emission or something, but think that: A government organization is required by law to keep track of private citizens (in this case the Federal Aviation Administration) and a private cooperation (the Wall Street Journal) gets the information via a FOIA request and can build a private database of it.
What about a FOIA request for each Social Security Number? Or a FOIA request for each mobile phone number? Or to any other information that the government is keeping track of its citizens?
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
It is not so much that the FAA is required to keep track of citizens. However, it does keep records of all flight plans filed.
The only time a flight plan is usually filed is when a pilot flies in instrument meteorological conditions, or in Class A airspace (all airspace above 18,000 MSL). Both of these are voluntary, so there is no "requirement to track private citizens." There may be more, but I need to go through the FAR/AIM and refresh my memory some time soon.
Sorry, but buying carbon offsets is just pure bull puckey. There is no such thing. You created the carbon, you do not get absolution by paying someone else off not to or whatever makes you feel good scheme they come up with. What is next? Give birth/father a child for every person you murder? Gee you honor, I know its bad I killed Bob, but I named my new child after him so it all works out?
If anything Carbon Offsets by the save the earth crowd are the ultimate hypocrisy. If they are so worried they could watch it on broadcast. Instead they flaunt it all the while telling people they care.
I am all for using ones personal jet / fortune as one sees fit. Don't just sell me a line about how you care by buying offsets. That is just arrogance.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Carbon credits erased jet pollution. Amazing! Next thing you know we'll be able to pay the pope to erase our sins. Sounds like a scam, but I'm sure it's on the up and up.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun
Well, you're where you should be all the time
And when you're not, you're with
Some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend
Wife of a close friend, and...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
'I have a plane,' Cuban quipped. 'I bought it so I could use it. Shocking, isn't it?'
That was just awesome. As far as google goes they have a right to do whatever they want but don't at the same time expect anyone to think Google is somehow different or less 'evil' than any other large corporation. How rediculous the following 60 minutes piece seems today.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/30/60minutes/main664063.shtml
that he is trying to come up with a sound, rational, statement as opposed to trying to throw around as much FUD as possible.
I cannot believe people still buy into this scam.