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Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

publicpolicy.googleblog.com

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Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#151

Post by jedberg »

mozumder wrote: post #119
guelo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could see Clinton doing that backflip but if it's Trump he seems to be genuinely anti-free trade.

lol you actually believe a Republican would be against free trade? There's a reason he ran as a Republican in the first place.

He did that because he had to pick a party. He could have just as easily run as a Democrat and used the same tactics with different talking points.

He doesn't really alight with either party.

But he's most certainly anti-free-trade. All of his business and money is in the US (mostly in real estate). It's in his best interest to artificially prop up US industry by shutting down inbound trade.

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#152

Post by serge2k »

pzone wrote: post #121
_delirium wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One specific part I don't like is that it would require signatories to enforce a DMCA-like ban on circumvention of DRM mechanisms. The US already has such a ban, but putting it in a treaty makes it worse (harder to repeal), and it would create one in countries which don't already have one. In general the intellectual-property related provisions seem not good to me, almost exclusively in the direction of more restrict…

There's essentially no enforcement of copyright law in many of the signatory states. Yes DRM kind of sucks, but rampant piracy also kind of sucks. The way the US does it I think is closer to optimal than the way Vietnam does it. That's why Google calls the provisions "balanced copyright enforcement."

> The way the US does it I think is closer to optimal than the way Vietnam does it

Specifically with regard to DRM I'd say they are just as ineffective, but more consumer hostile.

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#153

Post by vidarh »

rory096 wrote: post #142
forrestthewoods wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. Full text had been available since November. https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/tran...

To expound on this, "by the time the documents are finalized, it will be signed before the ink of the text is dry" is typical FUD from anti-TPP people who've never bothered reading anything on the subject except other anti-TPP FUD. Negotiating treaties in private is normal, to prevent parties from manipulating public opinion to gain a stronger negotiating position and to prevent kneejerk outcries from the anti-trade…

As a prominent example of a treaty which was negotiated fully in the open: The UN treaty. Broadcasters were present and recording large parts of the negotiations. Positions papers were printed during the negotiations. Detailed information including drafts was mailed out to citizens of many countries.

Negotiating treaties in private has become normal because its inconvenient to those who wish to find ways getting their pet provisions packaged into something that is hard to resist.

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#154

Post by [deleted] »

raddad wrote: post #83
packetslave wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed]

"The analysis found a very different result with Google’s top competitors, Bing and Yahoo. When spotted the terms “Hillary Clinton cri” and “Hillary Clintion ind,” Bing and Yahoo brought up as their top choices “Hillary Clinton criminal charges” and “Hillary Clinton indictment” as part of their auto-complete functions using the same key letters, according to SourceFed. While that could reflect legitimate differences…

[deleted]

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#155

Post by packetslave »

packetslave wrote: post #46
jkeler wrote: post #45

First they manipulated search suggestions in favor of Hillary and now this :(

[citation needed]

"Despite what you might have seen online, Google is not manipulating its search results to favor Hillary Clinton."

http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/10/technology/hillary-clinton-g...

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#156

Post by Buge »

Jerry2 wrote: post #110
Buge wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That autocomplete thing looks innocent to me. They seem to block all "firstname lastname liar" and "firstname lastname criminal" autocompletes.

Why did they block the word "indictment" but not "racist"?

Maybe they overlooked it. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets blocked in the future.

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#157

Post by vidarh »

MichaelGG wrote: post #109
typon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be okay with minutia or details like these, making it a highly complex trade agreement. What i can never swallow is the secrecy. If it really is a good trade deal, why not make it transparent? They should be publishing it online, searchable and indexable with consice summaries for every section. This deal will literally affect billions of people, the people have a right to know.

The reasoning provided is that negotiators can't do their jobs well if every single thing they ask for is publicized then politicized. Unfortunately this ends up with a treaty that no one wants to renegotiate, a take-it-or-leave-it deal with a bunch of sunk costs.

There is a lot of middle ground between keeping something secret until there's something take-it-or-leave-it vs. publishing every "what if we do X, will you then let us do Y" back and forth. If more intermediate work products are unfit for public eyes, perhaps they shouldn't be going there in the first place.

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#158

Post by tzs »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #2

Wow. Even as the resident Google critic, I never expected Google would sink down to the level of endorsing the TPP. :/ This is a clear break from the EFF's position ( https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp ) and a strong indication of their increasing closed door ties with the Obama administration.

Or it could be an indication that Google is considering a bigger picture than the EFF is. TPP is a comprehensive agreement, covering a wide range of topics and activities. Here are the titles of the major components:

    Competition & Business Facilitation
    Competition Policy
    Cooperating & Capacity Building
    Cross Border Trade in Services
    Customs Administration & Trade Facilitation
    Development
    Dispute Settlement
    Electronic Commerce
    Environment
    Financial Services
    Government Procurement
    Intellectual Property
    Investment
    Labour
    National Treatment & Market Access for Goods
    Regulatory Coherence
    Rules of Origin and Origin Procedures
    Sanitary & Phytosanitary Measures
    Small & Medium-sized Businesses
    State-Owned Enterprises
    Technical Barriers to Trade
    Telecommunications
    Temporary Entry for Business Persons
    Textiles & Apparel
    Trade Remedies
    Transparency & Anti-Corruption
The EFF's opposition seems to be almost all based on just one of those components (Intellectual Property). It is quite possible that others, including Google, could see enough positives in the other components to outweigh the negatives the EFF sees in the IP component even if they agree with the EFF that those IP provisions are serious negatives.

This is especially true when you consider that much of the EFF's criticism of the IP section is over provisions that are already in effect in the US, and to a lesser extent in Europe. For instance, the US and Europe already have the 70 year copyright term, and the US and Europe already have anti-circumvention measures (DMCA in the US, the Copyright Directive [1] in the EU). Basically, many of the things the EFF objects to ALREADY APPLY to Google in most of Google's markets.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Directive

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#159

Post by vidarh »

_delirium wrote: post #71
josho wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To offer an alternative viewpoint. In Canada we have laws that protect personal health data. For instance my doctor cannot save my patient data outside of the country. This is a major pain for SAAS vendors, and I understand google's position. However, as a patient I appreciate knowing that my personal health data is not being sent around the world to other jurisdictions that may not have the same privacy and data pro…

I agree with this as an American as well. Obviously worries about the NSA getting your data are moot if the data was American to begin with, but there are a lot of other concerns, too. I wouldn't feel comfortable with my medical data being stored just anywhere, and I think it's entirely reasonable that the U.S. government should be able to put some restrictions on where it's stored. It may be possible to come up with…

The EU did this, remember, by agreeing to a "safe harbor" agreement with the US, where companies could certify that they would voluntarily treat personal data from the EU according to EU data protection rules. But then it transpires that we can not actually trust this, because US companies do not have the ability to control this.

That said, as as long as TPP only requires that there is no discrimination, that should not affect the EU rules much other than perhaps requiring the EU to put more resources into determine which countries have laws and governments that makes it possible for local companies in those countries to abide by the EU regulations.

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#160

Post by Razengan »

nostromo wrote: post #143
harry8 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

trump isn't genuinely anything but pro-trump.

Hillary reads the same to me, I must say. I have no idea what she genuinely believes. But, honestly, why would anyone run for president unless they were an insane egoist or craved power? It's not a job a sane person would volunteer to do. There are a few rare individuals that do it out of desire to do good, but they seem rarer by the day.

I suppose we can only hope to survive until government by A.I. happens.

Preferably open-sourced.

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