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Oracle Is Funding a New Anti-Google Group (fortune.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the shadow-group dept.

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Fortune: Oracle says it is funding a new non-profit called "Campaign for Accountability," which consists of a campaign called "The Google Transparency Project" that claims to expose criminal behavior carried out by Google. "Oracle is absolutely a contributor (one of many) to the Transparency Project. This is important information for the public to know. It is 100 percent public records and accurate," said Ken Glueck, Senior Vice President of Oracle. Fortune reports: "Oracle's hidden hand is not a huge surprise since the company has a history of sneaky PR tactics, and is still embroiled in a bitter intellectual property lawsuit with Google." One would think Microsoft may be another contributor, but the company said it is not. Daniel Stevens, the deputy director of the CfA, declined to name the group's other donors, or to explain why it does not disclose its funders. Why does this matter? "When wealthy companies or individuals pose as a grass-roots group like the so-called 'campaign for accountability' project, [it] can confuse news and public relations, and foster public cynicism," writes Jeff John Roberts via Fortune.

19 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Pot, meet kettle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hilarious.

    1. Re: Pot, meet kettle by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think Oracle is probably just annoyed because after winning all of their big lawsuits against their own costumers, they lost what is arguably the mother of all of their lawsuits, and it wasn't one of their customers this time

    2. Re:Pot, meet kettle by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The evil of Google is like a candle flickering in the darkness.
      The evil of Oracle is like the midday sun.

    3. Re: Pot, meet kettle by yuvcifjt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're kidding right?
      Surely you can't be that ignorant of Google's power?!

      Here's a quick search to answer your question.

      Google literally have the power to change leadership of entire nations and sway voters, and even make or break an entire company!

      Google products are 100% voluntary, if you don't want to use them, then don't...

      Err, no they're not.
      You're Google's product and slave whether you like it or not.
      It's easy (for a technical person) to simply not use facebook and block their 2/3 domains, but it's almost impossible to do that with Google, considering GoogleAPIs, Captcha, Doubleclick, Analytics, GoogleAdServices, GoogleSyndication, GTM, Plus, etc, etc.

    4. Re:Pot, meet kettle by no1nose · · Score: 3, Informative

      Wanted to mod you up but everyone else already did. Oracle is evil. Anybody who says otherwise is selling something.

  2. If Google is doing something illegal by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Then call them out on it already. Don't care if it's Oracle holding a childish grudge or not.

    1. Re:If Google is doing something illegal by guises · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you call them out on it then they can refute it. This is SCO tactics, and Oracle is going to milk it for as long as they can.

      There couldn't have been a worse company to buy Sun, even Microsoft would have been preferable.

    2. Re:If Google is doing something illegal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Thank you for your post Larry.

    3. Re:If Google is doing something illegal by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh bullshit. Oracle lost because Oracle never had a fucking case.

      Christ, Microsoft shills is one thing, but defending one of the most vile tech companies that ever existed, gimme a break. Every time Oracle gets shafted, an angel gets its wings.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  3. Transparency project + secret funding = FAIL by mdtiemann · · Score: 4, Funny

    Umm...what part of transparency do they not understand?

  4. I'll bet it's all Larry by surfdaddy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Larry Ellison is likely pissed that Google managed to make a ton of money over the language that Oracle bought with Sun, but never managed to do anything with it. So go after Google. I also wouln't be surprised if Microsoft is involved. Microsoft likes to be a tough competitor but they don't like other tough competitors.

    1. Re:I'll bet it's all Larry by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's like being mad at all the successful psychics when you were the only one who paid for the official psychic's license from the back of a psychic magazine.

    2. Re:I'll bet it's all Larry by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "Microsoft says it is not involved", as quoted in the article, is not precisely the same claim as "Microsoft is not involved". Microsoft demonstrated during the SCO/Linux lawsuits that they could, and did, hide their business sponsorship of morally bankrupt legal fraud by encouraging their business partners to engage in support of the fraudulent litigants. That effectively kept Microsoft funding of the lawsuit from showing up in any directly traceable payments.

  5. Honest question time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Honest question time. Has anybody ever used an Oracle product that wasn't garbage? The only way I could see it is if they were selling trash to a dump, Oracle could probably find a way to fuck that up. Oracle go kill yourself.

    Oh and fuck Google too. When the mob puts a hit out on you it's often not because you've been running your business too honestly.

    1. Re:Honest question time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm posting this as AC because I'm currently involved in the rollout of a big, bloated, expensive Oracle product at a major university.

      They're a fucking shitshow through and through. No one knows what's going on. This thing is going to be delayed by at least a year or it's going to be rammed down our asses and be a catastrophe for 18 months or more. Billions will be lost in man-hours alone, and even in the best case scenario where it somehow magically works nothing will be gained. Instead, more staff will be required to support and coddle this beast.

      I've intentionally avoided looking up how much we will be spending on this fucking thing or how it was approved because I know I won't like what I find out.

  6. Accountability? by XSportSeeker · · Score: 5, Informative

    Oracle is campaigning for accountability? Sure, I love accountability.
    How about:

    - Improper accounting practices on your cloud service business: http://venturebeat.com/2016/06...
    - Breach of contract: http://www.pcworld.com/article...
    - Putting stockholders' investments at risk: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
    - Fraudulent practices/overcharging the Deparment of Justice: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr...
    - Patent infringement: http://www.infoworld.com/artic...
    - Project cost overrun and breach of contract again: http://wtnnews.com/articles/85...

    If Oracle had any hint of accountability it would've closed doors a long time ago. What they want is money.

  7. All your attention are belong to us by shanen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think you are confusing aspirations with reality. Oracle has sunk so low that they are approaching "mostly harmless" status, whereas the google has completely transcended and redefined EVIL. New motto is "All your attention are belong to us". Your personal data is just collected for more leverage.

    The real problem is that we are forced to pick between lesser evils in EVERY purchase we make. The single-objective quest for profit has produced a small number of cancerous monster companies. I'm wracking my brains, but right now I am unable to think of a single company that I've recently done business with that I would rate as more good than evil.

    Mostly our own collective fault? I can actually think of a few companies that seem basically good, but the result is that their goods and services are no longer competitive, so I can't even justify the premium I'd have to pay. Of course, then I can rationalize the decisions to do business with the typical bad companies. The good company is probably going to go bad soon enough, or it's probably bad on the inside if I just look a bit more closely. The entire game of business (especially in America) has been rigged for nasty companies that grow like mindless cancers in pursuit of more money.

    Unsolvable problem. NO amount of money would ever be "more" enough.

    --
    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    1. Re:All your attention are belong to us by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They have exceptional software engineering standards

      Their search is good. Their advertising platform (for advertisers) is alright. Their operations team is top-notch. A lot of the other stuff is half-done. Android is barely sufficient (and has a lot of messiness, too).

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  8. It's not that hard by trawg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Oracle, if you want to be total dicks to google but get tech people on side so we start giving a shit about you, here's an idea: build us a nice open source browser with no telemetry that blocks ads. Base it on Chromium. Make it fast and lightweight and strip out anything that might annoy privacy advocates (like syncing) and make it an optional extension.

    Short of building a better search engine it's the only thing I could imagine making me try one of your products again.