Google Comes Down on the Wrong Side of the TPP • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Comes Down on the Wrong Side of the TPP

#21

Post by kyrra » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 3:06 PM UTC

mattnewton wrote: post #16

kyrra wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's Eric Schmidt, not Google. While he may be the executive chairman for Google, those efforts are outside of Google's goals. If you want to look into where Google puts some of it's money, check out: https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00428623

As posted elsewhere, it's not damning and could still be a total coincidence, but it does raise eyebrows: http://siliconangle.com/blog/2016/06/10/google-is-manipulati...

The video was talked about briefly on HN before being flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11871248

Vox showing counter examples: http://www.vox.com/2016/6/10/11903028/hillary-clinton-google...

Google denying it: https://search.googleblog.com/2016/06/google-search-autocomp...

Re: Google Comes Down on the Wrong Side of the TPP

#22

Post by niftich » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 3:08 PM UTC

TPP the largest cross-national, non-military cooperation pact of our time. It's a huge power play with serious geopolitical consequences that go far beyond Google.

Nonetheless, Google benefits from TPP because it enables them to shift operations to areas with lower costs, and not having their services blocked or censored in participating countries. They clearly feel that the advantages of TPP outweigh the drawbacks. I don't expect a public corporation to oppose a trade agreement on grounds of protectionism or ideology.

Author cites expansion of copyright and corresponding limitation of free use as specific problems with TPP, but Google comes out in support of those points. Analysis of other problematic provisions of TPP would serve to make the article more persuasive, rather than stating that Google is wrong on those grounds.

Re: Google Comes Down on the Wrong Side of the TPP

#23

Post by mattnewton » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

kyrra wrote: post #21

mattnewton wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As posted elsewhere, it's not damning and could still be a total coincidence, but it does raise eyebrows: http://siliconangle.com/blog/2016/06/10/google-is-manipulati...

The video was talked about briefly on HN before being flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11871248 Vox showing counter examples: http://www.vox.com/2016/6/10/11903028/hillary-clinton-google... Google denying it: https://search.googleblog.com/2016/06/google-search-autocomp...

Thanks for additional sources. I was unaware.

Re: Google Comes Down on the Wrong Side of the TPP

#24

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 3:32 PM UTC

niftich wrote: post #22

TPP the largest cross-national, non-military cooperation pact of our time. It's a huge power play with serious geopolitical consequences that go far beyond Google. Nonetheless, Google benefits from TPP because it enables them to shift operations to areas with lower costs, and not having their services blocked or censored in participating countries. They clearly feel that the advantages of TPP outweigh the drawbacks.…

> They clearly feel that the advantages of TPP outweigh the drawbacks.

The problem is that's always how this works. You take a thousand people who each want something that will help them a lot and hurt everybody else a little. If you only look at them, they come out ahead, because they get +1200 from the thing they wanted and -1000 from the sum of all the little harms everybody else wanted. But everybody who isn't a huge corporation with the ability to shovel the thing they wanted into the treaty only gets the -1000, which makes the treaty a huge net negative because there are a lot more mortal people taking the big hit than there are huge corporations eeking out a little at the margin.

> Author cites expansion of copyright and corresponding limitation of free use as specific problems with TPP, but Google comes out in support of those points. Analysis of other problematic provisions of TPP would serve to make the article more persuasive, rather than stating that Google is wrong on those grounds.

Author links to their explanation in the article:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120804/00173819933/tpp-t...

Re: Google Comes Down on the Wrong Side of the TPP

#25

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 3:33 PM UTC

niftich wrote: post #22

TPP the largest cross-national, non-military cooperation pact of our time. It's a huge power play with serious geopolitical consequences that go far beyond Google. Nonetheless, Google benefits from TPP because it enables them to shift operations to areas with lower costs, and not having their services blocked or censored in participating countries. They clearly feel that the advantages of TPP outweigh the drawbacks.…

[deleted]

Re: Google Comes Down on the Wrong Side of the TPP

#26

Post by Infernal » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 3:46 PM UTC

greeneggs wrote: post #10

pjc50 wrote: post #8

"The TPP requires the 12 participating countries to allow cross-border transfers of information and prohibits them from requiring local storage of data" Yup, definitely the wrong side of this. I can't see how this will get passed in the EU when it directly contradicts all the previous data protection rulings, but presumably there will be some undemocratic process.

TTP = Trans-Pacific Partnership TTIP = Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Invest...

/s/TTP/TPP/

Re: Google Comes Down on the Wrong Side of the TPP

#27

Post by niftich » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 3:46 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #24

niftich wrote: post #22

TPP the largest cross-national, non-military cooperation pact of our time. It's a huge power play with serious geopolitical consequences that go far beyond Google. Nonetheless, Google benefits from TPP because it enables them to shift operations to areas with lower costs, and not having their services blocked or censored in participating countries. They clearly feel that the advantages of TPP outweigh the drawbacks.…

> They clearly feel that the advantages of TPP outweigh the drawbacks. The problem is that's always how this works. You take a thousand people who each want something that will help them a lot and hurt everybody else a little. If you only look at them, they come out ahead, because they get +1200 from the thing they wanted and -1000 from the sum of all the little harms everybody else wanted. But everybody who isn't a…

Thanks for the link, but that's the same point about the reduction of fair-use of copyrighted works.

I meant the analysis of all the -other- things, besides copyright harmonization, that make TPP bad, which the author refers to briefly:

"There's so much in there that's about blatant protectionism and supporting certain business models over others."

and

"(...) other problems in the agreement (such as the corporate sovereignty provisions that will almost certainly come back to bite Google and others)."

These could be good points, but since the author mentions them only in passing, and does not expand on them. After reading both links it sounds as if the author's opposition of Google's stance is entirely predicated on the copyright/fair-use topic, despite implying that TPP is deeply flawed for other reasons that should warrant its abandonment.

Re: Google Comes Down on the Wrong Side of the TPP

#28

Post by alwaysdoit » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 3:47 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #8

"The TPP requires the 12 participating countries to allow cross-border transfers of information and prohibits them from requiring local storage of data" Yup, definitely the wrong side of this. I can't see how this will get passed in the EU when it directly contradicts all the previous data protection rulings, but presumably there will be some undemocratic process.

> "The TPP ... limits governments’ ability to demand access to encryption keys or other cryptographic methods"

This seems good though.

Re: Google Comes Down on the Wrong Side of the TPP

#29

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 3:49 PM UTC

niftich wrote: post #27

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They clearly feel that the advantages of TPP outweigh the drawbacks. The problem is that's always how this works. You take a thousand people who each want something that will help them a lot and hurt everybody else a little. If you only look at them, they come out ahead, because they get +1200 from the thing they wanted and -1000 from the sum of all the little harms everybody else wanted. But everybody who isn't a…

Thanks for the link, but that's the same point about the reduction of fair-use of copyrighted works. I meant the analysis of all the -other- things, besides copyright harmonization, that make TPP bad, which the author refers to briefly: "There's so much in there that's about blatant protectionism and supporting certain business models over others." and "(...) other problems in the agreement (such as the corporate sov…

The author has previously written articles describing several other reasons:

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=tpp

Re: Google Comes Down on the Wrong Side of the TPP

#30

Post by mattnewton » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 3:57 PM UTC

niftich wrote: post #22

TPP the largest cross-national, non-military cooperation pact of our time. It's a huge power play with serious geopolitical consequences that go far beyond Google. Nonetheless, Google benefits from TPP because it enables them to shift operations to areas with lower costs, and not having their services blocked or censored in participating countries. They clearly feel that the advantages of TPP outweigh the drawbacks.…

I think you are right that the article is light on evidence for why the TPP is bad for consumers and could have used some links to sources to expand upon it more. But the article seems mainly geared to letting people who already care passionately about the issue know that Google is not on their side.

It doesn't matter if Google says they care about fair use or the expansion of copyright while throwing their support behind an agreement that does not. Even if this is to be expected, it's worth making a fuss about it because that's really the only weapon the public has at this point. Of course corporations care about their interests without taking only account negative externalities, but naming and shaming is a way consumers have to make them care about those externalities.