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Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

publicpolicy.googleblog.com

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Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#181

Post by haikuginger »

MichaelGG wrote: post #54
notthegov wrote: post #17

If these benefits are legitimate, why can't they focus on 5 or 10 specific objectives, and write them in some concise form like the Bill of Rights? Why does it need to be 2,000 pages and full of complex, obsfucated concepts and details? Is the only way for progress to happen? And even if the TPP is completely beneficial, it is still part of the philosophy of economic integration. Which at its heart is promoting the c…

I don't really know, but I'm guessing it's a comprehensive deal. With tons of players with their own goals. So there's probably plenty of stuff like "your eggs aren't round enough to be labelled like that, but we'll allow them if we can call our meat like this". And "we don't like your copyright law, but in exchange for ... we'll allow it". Layer on exceptions and whatever else and the page count goes up real quick.…

Bought a house recently- all in, there were around a hundred pages of paperwork.

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#182

Post by mac01021 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #27
revelation wrote: post #22

The free flow of information must be why they released this tidbit on Friday afternoon? If they are so proud, surely a banner on Google is appropriate. It's for a good cause after all.

This is how you dump a story. Everyone's on the way out the door for the weekend. Google will publish something "amazing" on Monday morning to excite everyone to the level that people forget Google sold them out three days prior.

This doesn't make sense to me. The purpose of endorsing something is to be heard by the public, thereby persuading them. You don't deliberately do it when noone is listening. You might as well just not do it.

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#183

Post by JoshTriplett »

kinkdr wrote: post #180
JoshTriplett wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't put words in my mouth. I think the majority of the treaty is terrible, spreading laws that prop up businesses based on copyright and patents, and on balance I think that no country should adopt it. In this one particular case, it appears to remove artificial restrictions that prevent consumers from doing business with companies they otherwise want to do business with. I'm in favor of that, whether it's "you can…

Shall we break it down? Let's say Japan has the following two laws: 1. "Google cannot conduct business in Japan unless they store their data in Japan" 2. "Netflix cannot conduct business in Japan unless they allow complete access to all content" Who does law (1) benefit, and who will be benefited if it goes away? Same for (2). > (Also, keep in mind that many of the "must store data locally" laws have less to do with…

In both cases, "who will benefit if the law goes away" would be people who wanted to do business with Google and Netflix, but can't because those companies were told they "cannot conduct business". If Google and Netflix also benefit from that, it's because they offered something people wanted to pay for.

The scenario you envision is "law blocks doing business in the country, so the business changes their practices". The more common scenario, for the majority of countries in the world, is "law blocks doing business in the country, so the people in that country don't get the service until enough people complain and the law goes away, or people find a way around the block if they want the service enough".

How about this one: "Whatsapp cannot conduct business in Brazil unless they make their customers' data available to the government on demand". ("End-to-end encrypted? That doesn't sound like 'yes sir how would you like that delivered sir' to me.")

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#184

Post by kinkdr »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #183
kinkdr wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shall we break it down? Let's say Japan has the following two laws: 1. "Google cannot conduct business in Japan unless they store their data in Japan" 2. "Netflix cannot conduct business in Japan unless they allow complete access to all content" Who does law (1) benefit, and who will be benefited if it goes away? Same for (2). > (Also, keep in mind that many of the "must store data locally" laws have less to do with…

In both cases, "who will benefit if the law goes away" would be people who wanted to do business with Google and Netflix, but can't because those companies were told they "cannot conduct business". If Google and Netflix also benefit from that, it's because they offered something people wanted to pay for. The scenario you envision is "law blocks doing business in the country, so the business changes their practices".…

I can see your point, and is definitely a multi-dimensional problem.

Just for the record and for not getting misunderstood, my opinion and what I support is to break any artificial borders on the Internet, which means that on one hand a corps may choose to store the data wherever they think is better, but also prevent the corps from altering their service based on a persons location.

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#186

Post by forrestthewoods »

fixermark wrote: post #60
forrestthewoods wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it anti-consumer? Convince me. I'm open. But I also want you to include counter-arguments. I want to hear both sides to reach a conclusion. So far most anti-TPP arguments I've read are high on rhetoric and low on substance.

I honestly can't fathom why this question has been downvoted. It's a reasonable question, and one I share. It's a large and complicated document; there's plenty of room for bad ideas, and plenty of room for good. The real question is, "Would we rather have nothing?" Because the existing ecosystem of loosely-affiliated nation-by-nation policies is a sh-tshow.

The total number of down votes I've gotten is crazy. HN sucks when you don't agree with the hivemind. It's frustrating.

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#188

Post by JoshTriplett »

kinkdr wrote: post #184
JoshTriplett wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In both cases, "who will benefit if the law goes away" would be people who wanted to do business with Google and Netflix, but can't because those companies were told they "cannot conduct business". If Google and Netflix also benefit from that, it's because they offered something people wanted to pay for. The scenario you envision is "law blocks doing business in the country, so the business changes their practices".…

I can see your point, and is definitely a multi-dimensional problem. Just for the record and for not getting misunderstood, my opinion and what I support is to break any artificial borders on the Internet, which means that on one hand a corps may choose to store the data wherever they think is better, but also prevent the corps from altering their service based on a persons location.

I do understand your point as well.

For my own part, I support breaking any artificial borders on the Internet as well. But rather than adding a restriction like "can't do business with a company if they offer different services to different locations", I'd instead remove any restrictions that might affect someone who simply purchased the service as provided in a different locale. (The company can try to block accessing other versions of the service, but that's a technical problem, and solvable with a technical solution. If the company can tell where in the world you are, we haven't made the Internet good enough yet.)

For that matter, geographical restrictions on media depend on restrictive copyright laws to have any effect at all. So I don't support adding a restriction to "solve" a problem artificially propped up by another restriction.

If the proposal on the table was a law/treaty to prevent people from accessing the service as sold to a country other than their own, then I think we'd both agree that's a bad idea and oppose it.

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#189

Post by MichaelGG »

vidarh wrote: post #157
MichaelGG wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OK but what would they publish? General ideas? The details being published would only lead to a mess as each company could advertise and make a fuss over things. Or other countries might do the same to shift things in their favor. The end goal for each country is to do things to benefit themselves, even if it means making hard decisions.

It's not like spy exchange negotiations or all other sorts of diplomatic processes are public. And it's not that things are unfit for the public per se, just that publishing each move isn't beneficial.

Yikes I never thought I'd be defending TPP-like processes. Personally I think we're (the world) not yet ready for this level of globalisation, unfortunately.

Re: Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership

#190

Post by iofj »

rory096 wrote: post #166
kuschku wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 crowd for every random provision any party proposes regardless of its likelihood to actually be in the final text. It is not about evil corporatists secretly conspiring to undermine democracy. Isn’t this the definition of doubleth…

No. It's a deal negotiated between twelve parties with different interests. The public/Congress get ample opportunity to review the completed deal and decide if it's worthwhile, just not access to the minute details of the negotiating process. That protects the treaty from being torpedoed by demagogues stirring up public outrage and drawing arbitrary red lines in order to gain unfair leverage over other parties. It a…

So what you're saying is that this law is really being kept secret for our own advantage ? Politicians can't be held responsible for their actions because they benefit us ? Can't have public influence over the deal because that would "torpedo" it ?

Maybe you should move to Russia or China, and have all your deals and laws done like this.

And they give the same argument you're giving : "it's for your own good". And I bet in one case out of 10 that's actually true.

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