
Google, in Post-Obama Era, Aggressively Woos Republicans - Futurebot
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/technology/google-in-post-obama-era-aggressively-woos-republicans.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
======
alphonsegaston
I'm not optimistic, but I hope that the Trump era finally puts an end to the
illusions people had about tech giants as a vehicle for social progress. We're
stepping into an era of extreme inequality, authoritarianism, and intolerance,
all borne on the back of their rise. They may not be the origin of these
trends, but they certainly rode them to tremendous wealth without anything
besides the most superficial concerns for their social consequences.

~~~
r00fus
You're blaming tech giants for the rise in inequality, authoritarianism and
intolerance?

It's like blaming Apple or Spotify that your favorite artists aren't as good
as they used to be.

Fine, be happy the veil is off (tech giants are corporations and when push
comes to shove are about money), but honestly you need to look at the
petroleum industry, security & prison industrial complexes and their bought
politicians to see the worst.

~~~
dgfgfdagasdfgfa
> Fine, be happy the veil is off (tech giants are corporations and when push
> comes to shove are about money), but honestly you need to look at the
> petroleum industry, security & prison industrial complexes and their bought
> politicians to see the worst.

I must admit, the difference is hard for me to see. Though the tech companies
may not be getting rich directly off the backs of the poor, they are just as
destructive in funneling large sums of money to a subset of society.

Guess who actually clicks on ads? Guess who allows for advertising loans up to
35% APR? That definitely falls within usury/payday/predatory loan range. The
36% restriction would only exist because people actively fall for those scams,
and it also indicates Google is ok with people falling for the 35% rate.

I also remember them recommending a payday loan company, but I can't find the
link.

TL;DR Google is rich off people who can't tell they're being scammed.

~~~
rak00n
Google actually banned payday loan ads from their network [1]. I couldn't take
your anger seriously after reading that line.

[1]
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/the-
switch/wp/2016/05/11/google-to-ban-payday-loan-advertisements/)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
As it happens, you did not read the article. If you did, you'd see that
"Google will not display ads from lenders who charge annual interest rates of
36 percent or more in the United States."

And the parent post is talking about loans with 35% APR still being quite
predatory.

[1]Non-AMP link: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
switch/wp/2016/05/11...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
switch/wp/2016/05/11/google-to-ban-payday-loan-
advertisements/?utm_term=.3714c76ffbef)

~~~
DBNO
Hi, it looks there is a factual dispute about the linked article. I think I
might be able to add some value to this conversation (but that's of course for
you to decide).

It appears the parent poster is arguing Google did ban [all payday loans]
while you are arguing that the article says Google did not ban [all payday
loans], but instead only banned [loans with interest rates >=36%].

My viewpoint: The article says both points, i.e. Google banned [all payday
loans] and Google also banned [all loans (i.e. of the non-payday variety) with
interest rates >=36%]

Evidence / Recitation from article:

"...In addition to the broad payday loan ad ban, Google will not display ads
from lenders who charge annual interest rates of 36 percent or more in the
United States. The same standards will apply to sites that serve as middlemen
who connect distressed borrowers to those lenders..."

"...Google announced Wednesday that it will ban all payday loan ads from its
site..."

As seen from the first above recitation, the words "in addition to" appears to
mean that two separate bans have been enacted: The first ban is for any loan
classified as a payday loan. That means a payday loan of any interest rate
(i.e. 35%, 25%, even 3%) will be banned. The second ban is for a loan of any
type where the interest rate is >= 36%.

Hope that helps, thanks for your time : )

------
protomyth
This is probably going to be a hard problem for a lot of companies. Spending
quite a lot of money on Democrats and little on Republicans looked like a good
strategy given the polling, but now they have to deal with a office holder
that is not the least concerned with building bridges and has a bit of
vengeful streak.

Not to mention all the contacts they have built up in the permanent staff
might not be there as long as normal[1]. The typical _hire former government
workers to lobby current government_ might also be in danger if the President
goes through with his anti-lobbyist rule changes. This is actually a big deal
for a lot of people, because these permanent employees are a lot of
organization's touchstones that cross administrations and party lines.

I would advice Google to have a small talk with their doodle team to not rock
the boat this year. That might be a signal on how aggressive they really are.

1) [http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/politics/top-state-
department-...](http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/politics/top-state-department-
officials-asked-to-leave-by-trump-administration/index.html)

~~~
kyrra
Google as a company gives equally between the 2 parties[0] (via it's PAC(s)).
Google employees that donated to candidates or various government entities
definitely leans towards the democrat side[1]. So the company knows to hedge
its bets and give equally both ways. (Most large companies do this, like
Comcast[2]).

[0]
[https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2016&cmte...](https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2016&cmte=C00428623)

[1]
[https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000067823&c...](https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000067823&cycle=2016)

[2]
[https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2016&cmte...](https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2016&cmte=C00248716)

~~~
mtgx
The problem is this shouldn't even be a thing.

It shouldn't be "Google" that _gives money to politicians_. It should be
individuals. And the sums should be capped at $200 (local/Congress elections)
to $500 (presidential elections).

Even "lobbying" shouldn't exist. There should only be public hearings. I don't
want some other party to whisper secret stuff to my politician. I want it all
on the record.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Yeah, I can't count how many Googlers have argued with me based on the claim
that OpenSecrets is highlighting donations of individual employees, and that
the company itself isn't buying these politicians... but that's what Google
NetPAC is for. Google gives to their own PAC, which gives to their paid-for
Congresscritters. Just a (thin) layer of obfuscation.

~~~
snowwrestler
Just to be clear, even though Google decides how to distribute it, the money
in their PAC comes from individual donations, not the company.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
But Google both provided that cash (presumably, to it's employees as pay) and
then got to decide how to spend it on political favors. And the lion's share
of the donations are likely from high-level executives who have at least some
stake in the company.

So, I guess, you could clarify that it's still somehow routed through an
individual at some stage in the process. But that's the sort of technical
trickery that is used for this corrupt behavior in the first place... which is
why individual donors are required to disclose their employer. As I said, thin
level of obfuscation.

------
AnthonyMouse
It's January. Mark this as "least surprising story of 2017" and it will still
be true at the end of the year.

Political parties sell themselves to voters as "be on our team". The other
team wants to rape women or murder babies, don't vote for them.

Corporations vote with money instead of with votes. When you vote with votes
and the other guy wins, you lose. When you vote with money and you pay both
sides, you always win.

Google doesn't pay Republicans because they hate women or want to Build A
Wall, they pay Republicans because Republicans are now in a position to
destroy network neutrality, they don't want that to happen, and politicians
don't listen to corporations who don't pay them.

Parties constrained by a system do what you would expect them to. If you don't
like it you have to change the system.

~~~
protomyth
> The other team wants to rape women or murder babies, don't vote for them.

quite literally in the election of 1800
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_zTN4BXvYI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_zTN4BXvYI)

------
rm_-rf_slash
The internet as we know it was born in a very unique time in history. Two
ideologies feuded for most of a century, and one collapsed at the same time
that the other created the internet. The side that created the internet
believed that their way of life, government, business, and so on would become
the standard around the world, the "end of history." We believed that the
world would stitch itself together and become gradually more liberal and
tolerant of the many cultures on this planet. The internet and the collapse of
the Soviet Union made that narrative believable, even perhaps inevitable.

As a result, we have a very skewed idea of what the internet is or should be.
It is no coincidence that the domain for 99% of sites we use is ".com."

The truth is, corporations for decades have become more powerful and detached
from their geopolitical circumstances. The subtleties of how the world works
is of little relevance to McDonald's as long as they can sell more hamburgers.
Corporations want to protect themselves from risk so they can continue to
amass profits.

Therefore, the newfound genuflecting to the GOP should be of no surprise.
Google ultimately has a mission to itself and its shareholders first. For a
company whose product is its ability to amass information, there is little to
be gained in promoting social or economic causes that do not benefit the
corporation.

Yes, it does suck that the utopian dreams of Silicon Valley have divorced
themselves from the liberal idealism of Northern California's Vietnam-era
glory days, but that is why I left.

If you consider yourself liberal and you work for any of these companies that
are aggressively courting Republicans, I would be very interested in hearing
your perspective.

~~~
jfoutz
> It is no coincidence that the domain for 99% of sites we use is ".com."

I sort of agree. Actually getting a .gov, .mil, .edu was pretty tough. I
vaguely remember people being quite prickly about .net, and a little fussy
about.org

------
mrtksn
Depending on how Protectionist Trump actually becomes, global companies like
Google and Facebook may have huge challenges.

Russia and China already had the idea of local alternatives and the EU was
pushing for data protection for a while.

Governments might decide that it is not good idea give that much information
about their population to the USA and maybe we will see the end of truly
global companies.

It might be good for Apple though, as with it's strict data collection
limitations.

~~~
TallGuyShort
I think you mean, "the end of truly global companies in the U.S." I firmly
believe a protectionist stance here is hurting the US as much as anyone else.

~~~
mrtksn
The end of the truly global companies in the US or anywhere. Especially the
companies relying on mass adoption and data collection will probably be forced
to scale back and if feasible run separate Data centres in individual
countries and be strictly regulated.

------
wmeredith
Gross. I thought a Google in bed with the Obama administration was unsettling.
One in bed with the GOP and Trump is terrifying. Google has the keys to the
muslim registry, and every other kind of registry you could imagine in every
country it operates.

~~~
rudolf0
I doubt Google or any other SV corporation would ever agree to help with a
Muslim registry. Even if somehow the top leadership of such a company were to
agree (which I doubt), you'd see defections, sabotage, and heavy leaks almost
immediately.

~~~
wsh91
[http://neveragain.tech/](http://neveragain.tech/) has a ton of Googlers on
there. I'm among them.

~~~
danjoc
Your replacement won't care. You even gave Alphabet mgmt a nice list of who to
downsize.

~~~
wsh91
I can't speak to anyone else's experiences here, but your cynicism seems
unwarranted based on mine.

~~~
551199
We'll its not like google had any problems creating a registry for Hillary who
was the actual threat to democracy as the Podesta emails verified.

[https://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-
workin...](https://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-working-for-
hillary-clinton-campaign/)

------
timeisapear
Shocked? It's called lobbying--it's been around for decades.

~~~
mtgx
So has bribery. It doesn't mean people shouldn't still be outraged when it
happens.

------
hackuser
Thank goodness the Republicans and Trump believe in the free market and not
government interference in business.

------
brightsize
I know of at least one subset of a top-tier federal agency that uses Google's
.gov services, this[0] I would assume. I wonder what the size of .gov business
is for Google and to what extent (vs anti-trust concerns) it factors-in to
making nice with the new regime?

[0]
[https://gsuite.google.com/industries/government/](https://gsuite.google.com/industries/government/)

~~~
niels_olson
You may be interested in the FedRAMP marketplace:
[https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#/products?status=FedRAMP%20...](https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#/products?status=FedRAMP%20Ready&sort=productName)

------
tn13
It is weird to begin with that Google would put all their eggs into one
basket. Silicon Valley would have looked all idiotic but for Mr. Thiel who
invested in Trump.

------
curt15
They need to get out in front of Oracle, which is probably the Silcon Valley
company least associated with the hippie liberal stereotype and thus most
likely to get Trump's ear if they want to make life hard for their
competitors.

~~~
redthrowaway
Pretty sure any company with Thiel on its board is sitting pretty.

------
andrewclunn
So long as the government contracts and regulatory favoritism are such a big
part of picking winners and losers you can bet this sort of thing will happen.
Now we have a President who knows he won in spite of many of these big money
interests (who overwhelmingly backed Clinton). That people here are
complaining about the companies for now acting in their own self preservation,
while also condemning money in politics is just... well it's the sort of
double think that is best explained by political tribalism.

------
aisofteng
This isn't an "about face" \- google is continuing to work with the White
House, just as it has so far.

------
anigbrowl
So much for 'don't be evil,' although that was always more of an ideal than an
actual policy guide.

------
general_ai
I can't believe they're stupid enough to think that Trump is a Republican.
He's neither. Both parties shat all over him during his entire campaign, so he
owes them not just nothing, but less than nothing, hence the promise to
institute the congressional term limits and anti-lobbying laws. And as
everyone discovered over the last week (much to everyone's surprise), Trump is
the first politician in history that will actually fulfill his campaign
promises. There are a lot of really old geezers in Congress, especially on the
Republican side, which won't like term limits one bit, so it'll require some
negotiating skill to shove it down their throats. I hope Trump actually
manages to pull this off in a way that's not easy to undo for president
Michelle Obama in 2024.

~~~
raldi
_> Both parties shat all over him during his entire campaign, so he owes them
not just nothing, but less than nothing, hence the promise to institute the
congressional term limits and anti-lobbying laws._

How will he pass laws without the support of at least 50% of Congress?

~~~
general_ai
He will get the support through amazing feats of negotiation.

~~~
raldi
Then how can you say "he owes them nothing"? If he wants to get any laws
passed, he'll need to give them something.

~~~
general_ai
He can play them against Democrats. In fact I bet he will have to. He owes no
allegiance to anyone but people who can re-elect him in 2020 if they think he
did a good job. He understands that.

------
notpc
I'm going to very amused as Google's "don't be evil" facade comes crumbling
down, having lost their revolving door with the US government and protection
from antitrust enforcement.

Google has a very small business, search & ads, that basically prints money.
They then spend almost all of that money on unprofitable operations that crush
competition by 1) setting the price-point for many services at free, 2)
intercepting customers (e.g. Google Flight and Hotel bookings at the top of
search results), and 3) poaching all of the best talent and wasting it away on
these terrible side businesses.

------
justcommenting
Turncoats.

------
solotronics
the very same Google that was funded with CIA money? I think they are more in
line with the deep state than either of the two parties

------
kapauldo
There arent a lot of republican engineers so this is probably not a big
problem for google.

------
PopsiclePete
Democrats have been on an incredible losing streak in the past 8 years. Lost
the Presidency, House, Senate, Supreme Court, most Governor seats....As a CEO,
you'd have to be pretty crazy to continue supporting the losing side, right?

