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Stanford Promises Not To Use Google Money For Privacy Research
An anonymous reader writes Stanford University has pledged not to use money from Google to fund privacy research at its Center for Internet and Society — a move that critics claim poses a threat to academic freedom. The center has long been generously funded by Google but its privacy research has proved damaging to the search giant as of late. Just two years ago, a researcher at the center helped uncover Google privacy violations that led to the company paying a record $22.5 million fine. In 2011-2012, the center's privacy director helped lead a project to create a "Do Not Track" standard. The effort, not supported by Google, would have made it harder for advertisers to track what people do online, and likely would have cut into Google's ad revenue. Both Stanford and Google say the change in funding was unrelated to the previous research.
If you want us to believe that you take our privacy seriously, you would do the opposite and create an endowment exclusively for privacy research.
An external audit is much more credible than the internal one.
Textbooks and Open Educational Resources
Both Stanford and Google say the change in funding was unrelated to the previous research.
Well that certainly puts the issue to bed.
https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2014/09/stanford-research-independent
Money quotes, emphasis mine:
"Julia Angwin's blog post today is incorrect. Stanford never promised not to use Google money for privacy research. "
"Julia asked me how we would deal with a situation where someoneÃ(TM)s "work on net neutrality or copyright, for instance, could wind up in the field of privacy." I told Julia: "No area of CIS research is 'barred'. We are free to work on whatever we like, including privacy. That makes things easy." Unfortunately, Julia did not include my statement in the piece."
It's fungible.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
Both Stanford and Google say the change in funding was unrelated to the previous research.
They can say that as much as they like, but it just is not credible. More evidence that Google has not only gone away from trying to not be evil, but is actually taking steps to become actively evil.
Like funding research and claiming it is for the benefit of society, but only if the research suits Google ---- therefore, the funding from Google helps reduce funding others might otherwise provide towards research that doesn't suit Google.
Standford should use Google money to fund its normal operational stuff, then use the money it normally uses for operations to do privacy research.
Lol I was just thinking earlier today how google hacked my browser to install unwanted files (ad cookies) on my computer. I'm pretty sure this is the textbook definition of malware. This is the $22m fine referred to in the summary
Honestly, that makes the whole thing seem even weirder and sleazier:
If the restrictions are actually so tepid that fungibility allows a simple reorganization of a few internal payments and no actual changes, then why would anybody bother to have them? Is somebody involved in the process actually that dumb or that petty?
If the restrictions are there for reasons that aren't dumb or petty and spiteful, then one has to be nervous about how they are working, what other mechanisms might be in place to help achieve the same goal, and so on. Given that they are embarrassing, they would not be in either Google or Stanford's interest if they had no other effects besides potential embarrassment. Unless there's a loose idiot involved, somebody thought that they were worth the risk of writing down, possibly for good reasons...
I'm probably to simple minded but this looks like a gold opportunity for Apple to exclusively fund the "Privacy Research" and specifically note that there are no strings attached other than research on "privacy".
It all starts at 0
Stanford says it's an "internal policy": https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/...
But this makes absolutely no sense. If all money goes into a general fund, there's no distinguishing "whose" money it is, it's Stanford's money.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
The summary has an interesting slant that being Google's restriction on the use of their contributions limits academic freedom. The legal filing puts it in a different light as the restriction on the use of funding eliminates any possible conflict of interest in the privacy research as the funding can not come from Google who could be hurt by the research. (Look near the bottom of the document)
Which is why there are accounting rules. I'm not saying it can't/isn't being done. But it isn't as simple as you lead on either. It's more about accountability to all the other people giving money for grants. Who would do it if they had no way of insuring the money they give goes to what they are giving it for.
use Google's $ to fund football/use football funds for (secret).
One of the neat things about money is it's all the same.
When it comes to research, this is almost never true. Almost all research grants come with very specific rules about how the money can and can't be used, and strict accounting procedures about how the spending rules are to be verified.
See Grimmelmann's post about the real situation at his blog, The Laboratorium.
Ha! We should all know that the way academic funding occurs is more like this: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1431
For all google's sins, wouldn't the federal government be a bigger offender on this issue? And since stanford is obviously going to still cash those checks what exactly is the point of not taking google's money? I mean... that's like saying "I won't take money from this street thug but I'll take money from the kingpin."... it is absurd. I mean... snowden was not whistle blowing on google.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
This is the exact reason why public funding needs to be primary source of funding for research organisations. Otherwise, certain "inconvenient" types of research (for donors) gets terminated like this.
Imagine if Stanford published some privacy-related research, and there was a note at the bottom "This Paper was Partially Funded by a Grant From The Google Foundation", or whatever... there'd be a huge outcry of how tilted and biased the results must be because Google was paying for some or all of it.
Would you trust cancer research funded by tobacco companies, environmental research financed by oil/coal companies, etc? In the same way, privacy research sponsored by Google automatically falls under a cloud of suspicion, along with the researchers doing so and Google for sponsoring it, should it find that there is no need for privacy intervention. On the other hand, if it finds the opposite, you get "even research funded by Google says people's privacy is being abused". This makes it a lose/lose for both Google and the researchers. This is somewhat, but not entirely, mitigated if the funds are for any research.
In short, it is not evil for a donor to say funds can't be used for a study where there doing so would produce a conflict of interest.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Many researchers will now pretend they'd never agree to such conditions etc, but the reality is that:
1. Targeted grants ("we give you $X to work on Y") are common
2. Many scientists are not particularly concerned with ethics outside the narrow area of not being a fraudster. As history shows (e.g. Nazi weapons research) scientists will take money from anyone as long as it allows them to research their pet subject, paying little thought to how their discoveries will be used. That's why anyone treating scientists as some role model in ethical behaviour is seriously deluding themselves.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
" If all money goes into a general fund, there's no distinguishing "whose" money it is..."
Sounds to me like an easy accounting exercise.
So don't put it in a general fund. Make a Restricted Account for privacy research. Then when you do privacy research, just make sure it comes from there and only there. Also make sure none of Google's money gets in there. Standard GAAP should handle that like a snap.
"Money" sounds "fungible", but it's not. In many ways, "money" = "$ combined with the source and destination". Or you can do it in reverse, and make Google's money a Restricted Account, and run it backwards in that general fund money can fund anything, but pulling Google's money needs a senior management review that it is "not reasonably construed" as privacy research.
And yes, get Legal on this. Because for example you can tweak a footnote of almost anything to "improve privacy" even if the original research was "Study of Seattle's laws penalizing food wastes in trash."
http://news.slashdot.org/story...
The world is just becoming messy because those old fluid "neutral zones" are closing up and Flannery O'Connor was right, "everything that rises must converge".
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine