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Google: new concerns raised about political influence by ‘revolving door’ jobs

theguardian.com

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Re: Google: new concerns raised about political influence by ‘revolving door’ jobs

#11

Post by deprave »

fo_rill wrote: post #10

The more I see the name "Alphabet" the more crooked and untrustworthy everything associated with it feels. It will be a cancerous flaw staining the reputation that Google has thus far earned, until it goes away. It feels like a pre-emptive "Altria" or "Xe Services" type rebrand, and it smells foul and deceptive.

Alphabet is basically a name to do things with Google money that people would have approved of if they immediately knew Google was associated with. It's a way to fool most people who probably won't bother figuring out where this "new" multibillion dollar corporation came from.

Hopefully the media keeps reminding everyone what Alphabet really is...

Re: Google: new concerns raised about political influence by ‘revolving door’ jobs

#12

Post by JoshTriplett »

kneel wrote: post #3

Google has collected vasts amount of information and they can recruit skill and develop almost any type of software they want. It seems like a no brainer they're going to play an ever growing role in government. How big a role do they play? What is the limits?

Conversely, the government represents one of the biggest threats to Google-sized companies, so it's not at all surprising that such companies preemptively maintain influence with governments with applicable jurisdiction.

If there wasn't a steady stream of new threats (ranging from minor to existential) coming out of government, there'd be less need to maintain influence within it.

Re: Google: new concerns raised about political influence by ‘revolving door’ jobs

#13

Post by azakai »

_audakel wrote: post #4

I'm not sure how this is very different than Goldman saches both hiring former members of the SEC and having many of its employees go on to fill top financial regulatory positions in government. People are not up in arms about that. I am sure other top banks in Europe do similar things ie have people they can influence in top positions or hire them. It is mostly likely google is the nrw kid on the block trying this s…

The difference is scale. As the article says,

> But Weismann said the scale of Google’s influence was almost unprecedented. “The revolving door isn’t unique to Google,” Weismann said. “What’s surprising is how aggressively the company has hired public officials, and how little attention it has received.”

Google isn't the first or the last to do this. But it's doing it a lot more than others, and with almost no pushback.

We saw a similar thing with lobbying in the US, where Google is among the top spenders (and the top among tech companies), but Google's public image seems to prevent much criticism from being aimed at it.

Re: Google: new concerns raised about political influence by ‘revolving door’ jobs

#14

Post by azakai »

_audakel wrote: post #5
kneel wrote: post #3

Google has collected vasts amount of information and they can recruit skill and develop almost any type of software they want. It seems like a no brainer they're going to play an ever growing role in government. How big a role do they play? What is the limits?

Is it a bad thing that Google plays a more involved role? They have on numerous occasions lent their technical expertise to improve horibly broke aspects of the federal govt (Healthcare.Gov is an example) . If they can improve the technical aspects (open apis for govt data for example), it might help bring more light to the parts of govt that are unavailable to ordinary citizens.

It's not good or bad necessarily, but it is incredibly dangerous.

Google is a massive corporation with unprecedented information about ordinary people. Information that we would never let governments collect on us. As Google becomes more connected to governments, that separation might break down.

The Snowden revelations showed us part of the hidden picture here. But the public picture, as described in this article, is enough to worry about.

Re: Google: new concerns raised about political influence by ‘revolving door’ jobs

#15

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

_audakel wrote: post #4

I'm not sure how this is very different than Goldman saches both hiring former members of the SEC and having many of its employees go on to fill top financial regulatory positions in government. People are not up in arms about that. I am sure other top banks in Europe do similar things ie have people they can influence in top positions or hire them. It is mostly likely google is the nrw kid on the block trying this s…

> I'm not sure how this is very different than Goldman saches

To be fair, that's not a great commendation.

Re: Google: new concerns raised about political influence by ‘revolving door’ jobs

#17

Post by Jerry2 »

ppod wrote: post #2

The UK is, relatively speaking, not a corrupt country, but this is one of its biggest problems. The magazine Private Eye basically every week lists out multiple cases where well-paid managers have moved between government and industry and used influence of one to help their friends in the other. Nobody seems to pay it too much attention. But you build one duck-moat..

>The UK is, relatively speaking, not a corrupt country

You sure about that? Just a week ago, a mafia expert called the UK "most corrupt country in the world".

Give this a read:

UK is most corrupt country in the world, says mafia expert Roberto Saviano http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/roberto-savia...

Re: Google: new concerns raised about political influence by ‘revolving door’ jobs

#18

Post by xbmcuser »

Jerry2 wrote: post #17
ppod wrote: post #2

The UK is, relatively speaking, not a corrupt country, but this is one of its biggest problems. The magazine Private Eye basically every week lists out multiple cases where well-paid managers have moved between government and industry and used influence of one to help their friends in the other. Nobody seems to pay it too much attention. But you build one duck-moat..

> The UK is, relatively speaking, not a corrupt country You sure about that? Just a week ago, a mafia expert called the UK "most corrupt country in the world". Give this a read: UK is most corrupt country in the world, says mafia expert Roberto Saviano http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/roberto-savia...

not for UK citizens or laws according to the article it is most corrupt as all the ill-gotten and corrupt proceed from all over the world are parked in the Uk

Re: Google: new concerns raised about political influence by ‘revolving door’ jobs

#19

Post by ENGNR »

hkmurakami wrote: post #8
_audakel wrote: post #4

I'm not sure how this is very different than Goldman saches both hiring former members of the SEC and having many of its employees go on to fill top financial regulatory positions in government. People are not up in arms about that. I am sure other top banks in Europe do similar things ie have people they can influence in top positions or hire them. It is mostly likely google is the nrw kid on the block trying this s…

>It is mostly likely google is the nrw kid on the block trying this sort of thing Right. Basically the banks have been playing this game for so long and are quite smart about it so they've learned how to keep things on the down low so the public won't get up in arms about it. They're also way ahead of tech in the PR game (or rather, not having undesireable PR pop up). Just look at how much flak big tech gets vs big b…

Finance has a pretty bad reputation these days though, saying finance is corrupt isn't exactly news worthy, which is why Hillary Clinton is copping so much flak for having a close relationship with Goldman Sachs. If it was Google instead I don't think it'd be as big an issue

Re: Google: new concerns raised about political influence by ‘revolving door’ jobs

#20

Post by neolefty »

shkkmo wrote: post #16

Perhaps we should requires some sort of "non-compete" like clause to limit regulators accepting jobs at the companies they were regulating?

In principle yes. It requires some extra support though -- regulation alone won't lead to a healthy situation:

1. We need to pay & respect regulators well enough that people will want to pursue it as a career, because once you start down it you won't be allowed to work in industry.

2. Expertise can be difficult to develop, but it's absolutely necessary for complex industries. Who is best-equipped to regulate, say, fossil fuel exploration? An experienced expert from that industry, since they know the ins and outs intimately. But they are also likely to have conflicts of interest. See Deepwater Horizon for an example of how badly it can go wrong when expert regulators turn a blind eye.

Occasionally it will go very well, like with Tom Wheeler of the FCC. He is an expert veteran of the telecom industry, and he seems to have public good in mind, and he values the regulatory role well enough to put some real effort into it and take professional risks. But his case is exceptional -- it's rare to find someone like that, from what I've seen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

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