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FTC Attorney Joins Microsoft
inode_buddha writes "Randall Long, a senior attorney who led several antitrust investigations against Google, has been hired by Microsoft. From the article: 'The software giant told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that it hired Randall Long, an official at the FTC's Bureau of Competition. When he joins the software giant at the end of the month, Long will head up Microsoft's regulatory affairs division in Washington.
Long was involved in FTC reviews of Google's acquisitions of both DoubleClick and AdMob. According to the Journal's unnamed sources, Long was especially outspoken about Google's AdMob acquisition, saying that the FTC should challenge the deal. His reservations were eventually set aside and the deal was approved in 2010.'"
They just don't even try to hide it anymore, do they.
My internetting is no good.
Well the US is not one of those places. People are pretty much free to quit one job and take another. Joining government might be harder.
In fact the only place I'm aware of an outright ban is France, where a three year waiting period must lapse before quitting government and joining the private sector. How one feeds himself and is family during this three years is not explained.
Other jurisdictions may impose restrictions via NDAs, and there are rules about defense contractor hiring, but only into specific jobs (procurement specialists can't join sales teams upon leaving government).
Besides... He's a lawyer.
Anything he did for the FTC is Attorney Client privileged, and we know Attorneys never violate that now don't we?. *cough*.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I suspect he's been working for M$ for a while now.
it's just official now.
Perhaps he had a prior arrangement with Google's competitor to develop distrust, in exchange for a well-paid sinecure once he was done.
"Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink." - Martin Lomasney
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
It's another case of revolving door - where a senior government officer getting a high ranking position in the private sector the minute he quit his government job
I'm afraid that in a civil society like what we have, we can't do nothing to this form of corruption
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The sad part to me is they don't even try to be subtle about it anymore, a corp will hire some elected official to shill and then give them a cushy job when they manage to get what they wanted. this is why my two boys refuse to even vote as they see no point in participating what is now obviously a completely corrupted system and with crap like this occurring daily frankly there isn't a single thing I can think of to use as a counterargument. From the local to the national its all nepotism and cronyism and bribery, revolving doors and backroom deals.
I have to wonder if this is how it ends, just one slimy roll downhill as the corps and politicians steal as much as they can before bailing when it all falls down like the fall of Saigon.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
perhaps he was never really working for the FTC to begin with, in fact, I dont even believe that this man exists!
It's easy to dismiss a lot of concerns as paranoia. That's an easy, cheap-shot retort around here. But sometimes suspecting conspiracy is more logical than believing governments/corporations/lawyers at face value.
If I said, "I suspect the Russian elections were unfair," would you shoot back with that same old tin-foil retort?
This hire looks like a duck, it waddles like a duck, and it quacks like a duck. As far as I'm concerned, it's a duck unless someone can prove to me it's an ugly swan. This guy has used his position in government to help Microsoft - whether it was agreed upon or coordinated or whathaveyou is irrelevant because accepting money from them looks shady and is ethically questionable. It looks like graft, the money moves hands like graft, and if money could talk then it would sound like graft, too. I don't consider myself paranoid, just cynical. Especially when Microsoft and the government are involved.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Haven't your heard the whole "when good men do nothing, evil flourishes" bit?
I agree with his boys, actually. Everyone's heard that, but a simple application of logic points out the flaw in your reasoning.
"If good men do nothing, evil triumphs" does NOT imply "If good men do not do nothing[0], evil does not triumph." Instead, it's become empirically clear that "good men doing something" is pretty much "pissing into the wind."
I think I am doing far better than the average voter myself who just checks off the ballot down party lines.
You're not. Simply because you are in the tiny minority, so whatever your doing is basically statistical 'noise.'
[0]Double negatives are valid in symbolic logic. :P
It implies "evil does not triumph if good men do not do nothing". That is, "evil does not triumph if good men do something".
Not so.
p: "Good men do nothing"
q: "Evil triumps"
"IF p THEN q" :
Truth table
p q "p -> q"
T T T
T F F
F T T
F F T
As you can see from the truth table, if good men do something, then it's pretty much up in the air. And as you pointed out, the self-feeding system is already pretty well armored against interference by the "good men."
The battle's lost. Just live with it and keep your head down until you die and it's not your problem anymore. That's my philosophy these days. All these idiots don't really deserve any noble sacrifices to save them from the fruits of their own complacency, anyway.