Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign
1–10 of 98 posts
Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign
#2Full Text:
Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign
#3Sadly, this has been a known fact for a long time, and it never gets a lot of attention. Joshua Wright, the former FTC Commissioner, was one of the professors previously paid to write 'academic studies' for Google.
Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign
#4To be fair, similar tactics are standard practice in many non-tech fields: pharmaceuticals, law, and agronomy to name a few. What's perhaps different here is that researchers may not be accustomed to disclosing financial support that is only weakly connected to the research in question.
Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign
#5> The money didn’t influence his work, Mr. Heald said, and Google issued no conditions: “They said, ‘If you take this $20,000 and open up a doughnut shop with it—we’ll never give you any more money—but that’s fine.’”
At a glance, this seems like the funds are no-strings-attached. But when you think for a minute, you realize it's the exact opposite.
Google is saying that if they don't like what you do with the money, they won't give you any more — but if they do like what you do with it then you might get more. This incentivizes the professor to use the money to do things that Google would like, which is the opposite of no-strings-attached.
There technically are no strings attached to this money, but the possibility of future payments (which ranged from $5k to $400k) is a pretty big enticement.
Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign
#6> The money didn’t influence his work, Mr. Heald said, and Google issued no conditions: “They said, ‘If you take this $20,000 and open up a doughnut shop with it—we’ll never give you any more money—but that’s fine.’” At a glance, this seems like the funds are no-strings-attached. But when you think for a minute, you realize it's the exact opposite. Google is saying that if they don't like what you do with the money,…
This is one of my favorites:
> He said Google was careful to say the checks came with no requirements: “It was a gift. Recipients can do what they want.”
I have never heard a statement so akin to organized crime as this. Things like saying how it'd 'be unfortunate if something happened to someone' or how they 'gave him a suggestion'.
The fact that they are being so careful to avoid explicitly stating they paid professors for supporting work makes me wonder... is there actually a crime here they're committing? I didn't think there really was, but if there wasn't, I doubt Google would be so coy.
Google Transparency Project tweeted that Eric Schmidt used one such paper when testifying to Congress without disclosing their financial interest: https://twitter.com/GTP_updates/status/884851123529691137
Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign
#7> The money didn’t influence his work, Mr. Heald said, and Google issued no conditions: “They said, ‘If you take this $20,000 and open up a doughnut shop with it—we’ll never give you any more money—but that’s fine.’” At a glance, this seems like the funds are no-strings-attached. But when you think for a minute, you realize it's the exact opposite. Google is saying that if they don't like what you do with the money,…
This is one of my favorites: > He said Google was careful to say the checks came with no requirements: “It was a gift. Recipients can do what they want.” I have never heard a statement so akin to organized crime as this. Things like saying how it'd 'be unfortunate if something happened to someone' or how they 'gave him a suggestion'. The fact that they are being so careful to avoid explicitly stating they paid profes…
Calling it a "gift" has specific funding implications for professors with labs. When a professor is awarded a grant (e.g. from NSF), universities often skim a portion as high as 50% in overhead fees. However, "gifts" have no such overhead and the money can go much farther.
Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign
#8To be fair, similar tactics are standard practice in many non-tech fields: pharmaceuticals, law, and agronomy to name a few. What's perhaps different here is that researchers may not be accustomed to disclosing financial support that is only weakly connected to the research in question.
Sure. Nobody's saying that Google's invented a new strategy here. We've all known Phillip Morris, Monsanto, and the like to do this, but generally such companies have been derided for the behavior. People are generally hesitant to group Google in the same class of corporate actor.
Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign
#9> The money didn’t influence his work, Mr. Heald said, and Google issued no conditions: “They said, ‘If you take this $20,000 and open up a doughnut shop with it—we’ll never give you any more money—but that’s fine.’” At a glance, this seems like the funds are no-strings-attached. But when you think for a minute, you realize it's the exact opposite. Google is saying that if they don't like what you do with the money,…
I agree with you.
But what Google does is as far as any sane donator/sponsor would go. We can't really expect them to keep sponsoring more doughnut shops after they find out their money is not being put into good use.
Re: Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign
#10> The money didn’t influence his work, Mr. Heald said, and Google issued no conditions: “They said, ‘If you take this $20,000 and open up a doughnut shop with it—we’ll never give you any more money—but that’s fine.’” At a glance, this seems like the funds are no-strings-attached. But when you think for a minute, you realize it's the exact opposite. Google is saying that if they don't like what you do with the money,…
But that's how most research funding works. The same is true if you get a government research grant - do what you want, but if they don't like your results, they are unlikely to fund you another round.