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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?'"
More to the point, this is a private person doing something privately with their earned fortune, its none of the WSJs business.
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
True its none of our business. But since its out, if they were concerned enough to buy carbon offsets couldn't they have also "flight pooled"?
...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.
They could have flown commercially if they were "concerned". But as Mark Cuban says, they bought a plane, why shouldn't they use it?
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
I mean, the rich have privacy rights, too. Why the hell should everywhere they fly be made public?
You don't need to get groped at the airport if you have your own private charter flight. That's got to be worth the cost of the plane right there.
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.
They are probably not allowed to flight pool per Google policy. Many businesses have policies regarding key employees traveling together. This is in case of a crash or or other unfortunate event causing the death of the travelers on board. If the policy is written well, they probably aren't supposed to be in the same car train or bus either as those forms of transportation aren't as safe.
It sounds like these private planes are an ideal weapon for terrorists! Ban them!
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
...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
... but if Google's founders can't fly to Tahiti to watch an astronomical event, then who can?
Google (as a company) is doing quite a lot for the development and implementation of sustainable energy, and the guys (as private persons) even seem to plant some trees (or something) to compensate for the fuel they burn.
I think that if you want to accuse Google of something evil, it has to be on the privacy front, not the pollution part. So, I think it's reasonable to be apologetic.
Ageer, this represents a serious breach of privacy. What would you think if your car location data would be publicly available? So anyone can basically know when/where you went? I have no problem if this you authorize to publish your data but not like this.
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...
You could take the bus instead of driving your own car. Just a thought. Go commercial buddy, stop taking private transport!
I would think that Page and Brin used their own personal money for the trip, not Google's.
Damn right, noisy jets should get off the air above my lawn!
And this is why you can do private air flights even if you are an out of touch with reality filthy rich person...
For the price of a commercial 1st class flight you can hop a ride on a charter corporate return flight. Detroit metro to JFK in 50 minutes on a learjet and it took me 15 minutes at the airport without getting groped.
Smart flyers know how to find these kinds of deals and get around the TSA garbage. And the TSA would not dare to try and enforce their abuses at corporate hangars..
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
These are two people who spend a lot of time proclaiming that we should reduce our carbon footprint. This is in the same category of hypocrisy as the guy who proclaims that sex outside of marriage is wrong and is then caught sleeping with his secretary. If your position is that AGW is such a major problem as to justify spending trillions of dollars of other people's money to mitigate it, then you should not be jetting off to some island to view a solar eclipse.
This type of behavior on the part of AGW proponents is why people like me don't take it seriously. The behavior of prominent AGW proponents does not seem to indicate that they really believe in it either.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Is this a joke?
We have newspapers to report on people doing things that are considered "wrong" or "not acceptable". Being filthy rich doesn't give you the right to do whatever you want.
Is this a joke? How is flying in a jet that you own "wrong" or "not acceptable"?
Don't worry, they're trying. I don't know how far it's gotten but I recall hearing something a while back about the TSA and or Homeland Security trying to throw up all kinds of roadblocks to private aviation. One of them was requiring that every passenger on every private plane/jet (even two seater prop driven) have some kind of background check ran on them before every flight. It should be noted that the aviation fuel tax on small aircraft PAYS for a good chunk of the air traffic control system, which they don't massively use. However commercial aviation, which pays no fuel tax, uses the system intensely.
I wish all evangelical vegetarians and vegans would stop breathing. All the hot air and CO2 they're emitting could be greatly reduced with their own asphyxiation.
today is spelling optional day.
And if you have your own private 767, you can get groped on the plane.
If you catch my drift.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
Perhaps the joke is that in 3 years of filthy rich private aircraft travel they only found one filthy rich person using their plane to go to a tropical island for a holiday. Clearly all the other private aircraft owners are only using them for humanitarian aid.
Now apply all of that logic to the public road network. Still think it applies? How about mobile phone signals and the public airwaves?
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.
If the government tracked all car location data, they wouldn't be allowed to keep it private either. Maybe the government shouldn't track car location data. Maybe they shouldn't be doing a lot of things they're doing.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Carbon offsets are not real. I repeat, carbon offsets and carbon credits are NOT real. It's the equivalent of purchasing organic foods because you want to help nature.
Perhaps the joke is that in 3 years of filthy rich private aircraft travel they only found one filthy rich person using their plane to go to a tropical island for a holiday. Clearly all the other private aircraft owners are only using them for humanitarian aid.
The best joke is the congresscritters taking a trio of Air Force jets to a climate change conference.
How does giving someone some money erase the hundreds of thousands of jet fuel burned exactly?
Right, so you buy some carbon allowance from some poor shlub from Kenya who wouldn't have emitted any CO2 if he tried. Well, he might work hard enough to own a donkey, which could then fart some... but that's neither here nor there. It's a sham. If you're concerned about the environment, it pains you to turn on the car, let alone fly on some weekend getaway halfway across the globe.
And it isn't the WSJ passing judgement. It's simply analyzing flight and fuel usage. You make your own conclusions.
Do we, every day? That should be included in the fuel tax. If it isn't, it's not really their fault.
And they did buy carbon offsets. Does that count?
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I don't remember signing the same kind of policy, yet Larry and Sergey haven't been flying with me, so I suppose it's in effect somehow.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
How is it any more wrong than what you are doing? Your computer is consuming precious energy and destroying the planet. You probably have the lights on, where do you think the energy for that is coming from? Did you walk to work? If not, then you probably used fuel on your way in. Have you ever gone on vacation, how did you get there? do you own anything made out of wood? a tree was chopped down to make that. how much energy was expended to make your house? your car? your computer? your various other toys?
we all expend resources. that's what modern humans DO. we use stuff. if you've got a problem with other people using resources, when they pay the going market rate, and that use does not directly deprive you of anything, perhaps you should rethink your place in modern society. Maybe the life of a monk in a mountain temple would be more suited.
For the price of a commercial 1st class flight
Smart flyers know how to find these kinds of deals
Smart flyers can also figure out why the rest of us fly budget/economy :(.
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.
Yea, we have a similar policy with the Unix Admins where I work. If we go out for lunch, we're supposed to take at least two cars (for example).
[John]
Shit better not happen!
Do you know, in my state at least, if we're driving and you signal to get into my lane, I'm not required to do anything? Likewise, if you're entering the highway from an on ramp, the onus is on you to merge in - nobody is required to "let" you in? There's no requirement or expectation of common courtesy... but you find a lot of people willing to grant it anyway.
So, while what you wrote may be true, while there's no expectation of privacy, it doesn't mean you can't grant it to people, and just like I will get annoyed at those who show no common courtesy on the road even when they're not required to, I will get annoyed at people who don't respect people's privacy just because they don't have to.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
If they were concerned about the carbon footprint couldn't they have just bought the offsets and stayed home? Actually the whole idea of carbon offsets is just bullshit. I wonder if they worry about a new era Martin Luther who will show what a mockery their Indulgences really are?
Even more to the point, how exactly is their whereabouts being tracked this way any different than their effort of tracking and selling the activities of every single person who ever uses the internet? Seems perfectly fine to me for them to have their travels publicized and mocked as appropriate.
If she swallows, does that count as the in-flight meal?
One car that is non-electric won't. One large house, or any of the other things that proponents of severe anti-global-warming measures want to limit, won't either. The usage by a single individual isn't going to have much overall effect on global warming whether it's a plane or whether it's something us peons without private planes use.
And even then, planes produce a lot more drops in the bucket. It's going to take me an awful lot of electric car usage to make up for 52000 gallons of fuel.
I would say that wishing extra burden, task, and hardship upon people "because I think they can handle it", that you would surely not wish upon yourself or your peers, probably classifies as "hate".
What would you think if your car location data would be publicly available?
Cars? Heck, I want all of the call records out of the Google execs' homes and offices. The NSA has them.
Signed,
Bing Corporate Division
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Carbon offsets are not real. I repeat, carbon offsets and carbon credits are NOT real. It's the equivalent of purchasing organic foods because you want to help nature.
How exactly do you come to that conclusion? Nevermind the fact that, as far as I am aware, purchasing organic was never about helping nature and was only about "eating healthier", if I put, say, 10 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, what does it matter if I personally do something which will pull 10 tons of CO2 out or if I pay someone else to do it on my behalf?
If that's not how it works, then that is a problem with the implementation, not the concept.
If instead you are arguing that the process that will pull out the 10 tons of CO2 will take too long to take affect, I'll grant you that point, but never have I seen anyone make such a point. Out of all the posts I've seen that say "carbon offsets are not real" (and I'll admit, the ones I've seen are few and far between, so maybe I've missed this next part), I've never a post explaining why they are not real.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
<badhumor>Quite frankly, I wouldn't want to be stuck in a car full of unix admins, I don't think my nose could take it. </badhumor>
July 11, 2013: Larry Page and Sergey Brin are killed when their planes collide in midair.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Kidding aside, immediately after the hijackers used COMMERCIAL JETS in the attacks on September 11th, ALL planes were grounded and the very LAST planes allowed back in the air were the ones were not then and have never been used in a terrorist attempt...private airplanes. However, private airplanes are a freedom that some people enjoy, and so therefore, if you believe the government, that freedom ought to be taken away.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The general problem is that the carbon offsets market is doing what markets are good at... initiating a "race to the bottom" to extract the most money for the least work (even when this means not actually reducing overall emissions). The "emissions reduction" market is rife with scams, much like agricultural subsidies that pay farmers to NOT plant crops. Corporations get to claim CO2 reductions on all sorts of projects that they were going to do anyway, whether decommissioning old factories or switching to newer, more efficient production techniques. Logging/tree farm companies get credits just for doing what they've always done. Speculators are buying up existing forest land (often in third-world countries) so they can claim CO2 reductions just for letting the forest sit there (as if the forest would have stopped absorbing CO2 reductions if not owned by the right investors). The end result is that the eco-conscious but naive jet flier releases 10 tons of CO2, then pays for 10tons of CO2 credits that are "fulfilled" by someone else getting bonus cash to do "business as usual". The most effective way for the original person to really reduce CO2 would be to not fly the inefficient private jet in the first place, cutting off the emissions right at the source, instead of handing off the responsibility to the markets which are efficient at weaseling out of actually sequestering more CO2.
And a misguided student, thinking himself a terrorist, flew a Cessna into an office building. He broke a window and knocked a LOT of paper off a desk.
Doesn't your report sound so much more ominous, though. 200 people. Thick, black smoke. It all sounds SO....ominous.
But I could have broken the window with a rock, or started the fire in a bathroom with a roll of toilet paper. Either way, I would have accomplished MUCH more with a rented van.
The restrictions on private aviation is just the government picking on a minority of the population. It's an easy way for them to expand their power base, as most people will agree with the restriction since it isn't something they participate in or understand.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Breathing is carbon-neutral.
No it isn't. Here's your thought experiment: What would happen if every animal on the planet ceased breathing, all at the same time? (for "every animal" use "every non-photosynthesizing organism"). What would happen to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere? To the concentration of O2?
See? Breathing, not carbon neutral. Your fuel source may be renewable, but that's not necessarily the same thing as 'neutral'.
---The Internet: Keeping pedants busy since 1989. Or '62. Or '69. Heck, when was that thing created anyway?
Out of all the posts I've seen that say "carbon offsets are not real" (and I'll admit, the ones I've seen are few and far between, so maybe I've missed this next part), I've never a post explaining why they are not real.
The #1 reason carbon offsets are likely not real is the massive amount of fraud involved in the "business".
There are many documented cases of sales of "carbon offsets" where nothing at all is done, or the same tree is "planted" for 50 different offsets. In addition, there is the whole point you mention that even if the seller does something, does it really "offset" the original carbon dioxide release?
Last, it's possible to sell carbon offsets just because you don't pollute as much as you are legally allowed to. In other words, if your type of business is allowed to emit 100 tons of CO2 every year, and for whatever reason you only emit 10 tons, you can sell 90 tons of "carbon offsets" so that other companies that can't comply with regulations are covered.
'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