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Google Has Been Paying Academic Researchers Who Write Favorable Papers: Report (cnbc.com)
Google has paid researchers and academics who have worked on projects that support the company's positions in battles with regulators, a report in The Wall Street Journal (paywalled) said on Tuesday. From a report: Google's practice might not sound all that different from lobbying, but The Wall Street Journal revealed that some of the professors, including a Paul Heald from the University of Illinois, didn't disclose Google's payments. Heald is one of "more than a dozen" such professors who accepted money from Google, according to The Wall Street Journal. Google has reason to try to get as many folks on its side as it can. The company has faced almost constant scrutiny for its business practices, most recently a record antitrust fine of $2.7 billion in the European Union. Tens of thousands of dollars to professors here and there could have helped it avoid that fine, and others.
Just another Madison Avenue outfit, updated for the Digital Age.
That's Google.
Just like every other company that does it. I'm looking at you Big Oil.
Nothing new.
A Jew joke on /.
I did Nazi see that coming.
News at 11.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Karma is going to bite those researchers in the ass. Any research they do in the future will automatically be suspect.
And they did a horrible disservice to their colleagues. With trust among the public at a low, they just made things worse.
Okay, so Google paid a bunch of researchers to do research related to Google. That's how most privately-funded research grants work. Groups don't pay researchers to research things that aren't relevant to the group's purpose. So this part of the article should not be particularly surprising.
As academic researchers, we have a responsibility to disclose potential conflicts of interest and sources of funding for our work. It is in our best interest to do so because our credibility can be called into question when it is revealed that we omitted this information from a paper, intentionally or not.
The article is light on details, but if one researcher failed to report a conflict and/or funding source, that's his fault, not Google's. The context is unclear, however. What paper did he publish that failed to acknowledge Google's funding support? Was it about or related to Google? Did he have reason to believe that the paper was insufficiently related to create a conflict of interest? Without this information, it's hard to estimate whether anyone in this scenario has actually done anything wrong.
Hard to get paid AND let the data lead outcomes.
Perhaps the the way to solve this issue is for all funding sources for every published paper to be included?
Of course, this won't stop the shell companies from being made, but if you can't follow the money, there isn't any chance of figuring out who is paying.
Let's see who can sell out this world the fastest.
Have gnu, will travel.
Without this information, it's hard to estimate whether anyone in this scenario has actually done anything wrong.
Indeed, without this information it's hard to believe that anything happened at all.
I know this one guy who make twenty million dollars overnight by doing odd jobs for this one dude over the internet. You should look into it, maybe something going on there, y'know?
It wasn't a joke.
You fucked that joke up. Might have been funny if you left out the "see".
Not sure about google, but many large companies have absolute policies on ensuring that paid researchers declare funding too as it not only looks bad for the researcher but also bad for the company when things like this are discovered (e.g. current story) so saying it isn't googles fault too is absolutely WRONG. It shows they are not doing their own due diligence when involving these researchers.
Google used to have the slogan "Don't be evil". They did away with it (or watered it down). They are becoming the New Microsoft.
Table-ized A.I.
ah forget it.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Microsoft used the SAME tactic back in the 1980's and 1990's.
(They still might do this as far as I know).
However, back in college (circa 1994), well known, collegiate professors would do a "Khrushchev" and shill the latest and greatest Microsoft technology as the model that should be adopted for whatever the topic at hand may have been.
Academians are probably cheaper to purchase than senators.
Scientists are all just hired guns now.
You pay money and the Scientist creates the proof you asked for.
Not to mention that if some of the researches ended up writing unfavorable papers, the headline would still be true.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Google aren't a charity or foundation, they're a corporation that expects RoI. They're not paying academics out of altruism. All corporate funded research that might influence public opinion or legal judgements should always be seen as extremely suspicious. Universities and researchers are being driven to deal with unscrupulous corporations by government reductions in research funding. They have to make up the shortfall somewhere and that usually means lowering or sometimes even ignoring their ethical standards in order to court corporations with their own agendas. It's a guaranteed way to corrupt science.
My bad, Reich you are.
It's classic clickbait press, what did you expect ? When there's not enough information in an article to prove its claim, just assume that everything is false until they provide necessary evidence.
Goodness, seems like we are finding out that Google goes out of their way to do every single evil thing we would have though they could have avoided. It's like they have an evil checklist and are trying to get all of the items checked off. I hear they have taken the Facebook tracking decision to heart and if you have ever used any google site, they will now be tracking you forever across all devices and media.
That's incorrect. When you accept payment from a company, even if you do not realize it, and even if compensation is not cash, you view them more favorably and your professional expertise and non-biased academic assumed position are compromised. It is a breach of ethics. The relationship should have been in bold at the beginning.
If Google or any company cite studies they funded which have no disclosure as part of regulation proceedings, they have committed fraud.
I normally agree more with Google than Europe's laws like right to be forgotten, but the above a really the facts.
A million keks to you sir
Except, of course, if you receive federal grants for climate research.
Replace "Google" with "China" and see if you still think it is "hard to tell".
Sure. If some Chinese organization offered research grants and made the funding not contingent upon publication (or suppression) of favorable (or unfavorable) results, that would be fine. As long as the researchers publish their affiliation, funding, and conflicts of interest. The scientific value of research is not in where the money came from, it's in whether or not the science is rigorous and reproducible. If it isn't, it doesn't matter who funded it.
Most commentators did not noticed the key word. Sometimes regulator function in some fields bring up clear totalitarism.
For instance - here in Belarus the metrology regulations according the law is laid on one person (position) - who conducts TC (technical committees) which consists of direct or indirect subordinates. In such case a business which first make a "friendly relationship" with regulator effectively disables other accessing markets. No scientific background, no industrial demands plays no role. This is fixed in the law.
So the only thing remain - discredit so-called "regulator" in the field that regulator cannot suppress or censor - science.
Heil not do it again.
period
Most funding sources require that any publication give attribution to the funding source as either PR or proof that R&D funding was really spent with tangible results. For someone to omit this, it would be a hit to their reputation amongst funding agencies.
The Wall Street Journal is part of News Corp, owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch holds a grudge on Google, and wants Google to pay him for linking to his stinking articles.
Editorial distance between the owner and the minions running the newspaper?
None