

A 'Thank You' from Google - dkokelley
http://www.google.com/landing/thankyou/2010/

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ihodes
It's sure disheartening to see the majority of comments here say something to
the effect of "20 mil is nothing—Google has so much more to give." Well they
sure as hell do, but we wouldn't be saying anything if they'd donated nothing.

I don't see why it's Google's responsibility to donate a percentage of their
income, or donate relative to other large donors.

I think it's cool Google donated 20 million. I don't know why it's on HN. I'm
not going to take this as an opportunity to bitch about how they could have
donated much more.

~~~
anthonycerra
People choose to look at the relative value of money instead of its absolute
value. 20 million for Google is nothing - true. However, 20 million as a US
currency is huge and can benefit many, many lives. My question for HN is which
way do you want to look at it?

Also, a question no one is asking: How much is Apple donating?

~~~
magicalist
as I noted below, according to <http://www.google.org/> they gave "over $100
million" in 2009.

I think this video came from some specific campaign from google (notice if you
go to the youtube page directly, the video is unlisted. also the whole "on
behalf of our customers"...what does that even mean?).

maybe the OP can give some context?

~~~
dkokelley
I got an email from Google with a thank you note and link to this video. I
can't determine if the 'thanks to you...' is referring to me as a (one time)
advertiser or as a regular Google user.

Edit (more clarity):

Here is the actual email from Google:

 _Dear ,

Thanks to you, this holiday season Google is able to donate $20 million to
charitable organizations around the world. They in turn will help improve the
lives of over 50 million people. Click here to see how.

Thank you for being a part of what Google is today. All this is possible
because of you.

Have a wonderful holiday.

Google_

Note that my name was not included in the email. I'm guessing they're missing
a record on me.

~~~
nostrademons
Advertiser, presumably. I didn't get one as a regular GMail user...

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ck2
I know this is a terribly jaded way to look at the world but when I see big
corporations boasting of big donations to charity, which have to be only a
small portion of their profits, it makes me wonder why they are paying their
employees so little or charging their customers too much.

Their corporate voice doesn't speak for me and other individuals would have
chosen different charities, so why don't they empower more people to make
their own donations instead of taking from us and doing it for us in their own
name.

What if instead Google just doubled the pay for all their employees in India
(for example) and allowed those people to put the money back in their own
economy as they buy things they need?

~~~
dkokelley
I typically favor the 'hands off' approach to social causes. That is,
individuals can do more good on their own than benevolent corporations or
governments. That said, Google doesn't exist to do good deeds. It is a
corporation designed to make a profit by providing a valuable service and
charging for it. Donating was not necessary, and I applaud these 'giving back'
efforts. I particularly like how it was quantified primarily in terms of
number of people affected, instead of amount of money given.

~~~
ynniv
Personally, I would rather they remove ads from YouTube videos. YouTube is a
great channel for learning, but is becoming marginalized by needless, annoying
crap popping up. Instead they have done what the rich always do, make a small,
visible allocation of their profits to a "cause" that is easily marketed. They
will certainly derive more revenue from increased traffic due to this
advertisement than it cost them, and they get to feel warm and fuzzy about it
at the same time.

This is not HN worthy.

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brownleej
I'm honestly curious what they mean when they say "Google's customers". Are
they referring to Google's _users_, or the much smaller group of people who
pay for Google services?

This isn't just snark. I think that a corporation's responsibilities to its
customers are different than the ones it has to its users, and its
relationship to its customers should naturally be different than its
relationship to its users. I wonder to what extent this distinction exists in
Google's culture.

[Edited to fix an error in diction]

~~~
bad_user
They would be stupid to make a distinction.

Users of Google's free services may not pay Google directly, but the currency
is different and Google relies on both types of customers to stay in business.

As for responsibilities, they are the same as for any other company: provide
better and better value while staying in business. Companies are not supposed
to be socially-responsible, and shouldn't be treated as such.

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alanh
Erm… I’m only seeing a “loading” throbber.

 _Edit after it becomes clear this is because I don’t have Flash:_

They are not only blocking out users with Flash disabled and/or not available
on their device, but also deaf users — there is no text equivalent provided.
There isn’t even an _explanation_ that a plugin is required.

~~~
IChrisI
This is also the first YouTube video I've seen, embedded or not, where the
position slider doesn't work. I also can't click to view it on YouTube.

~~~
davidmurphy
You can click on the YouTube logo in the video to go to the YouTube page. (I
had to, because there no music played on the original site.)

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foobob
20 million.

That's less than 0.1% of what Gates donates. That's about 0.01% of Google's
market cap. That's about 4.6 work-hours of Google revenues.

Google is counting on people not having a feeling for what "million" and
"billion" mean, aside from both being big numbers.

And part of what was advertised was charities using Google Apps.

I like Google, but this feels pretty cynical.

~~~
magicalist
according to <http://www.google.org/> they gave "over $100 million in 2009."
I'm not sure what this 20 million refers to, but it's not their total giving.

also, with Bill Gates you appear to be comparing total donations vs some
yearly amount.

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antimatter15
The URL to the YouTube video. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R06EAUAi4MU>

HTML 5 enabled:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R06EAUAi4MU&html5=1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R06EAUAi4MU&html5=1)

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mike-cardwell
This money is obviously doing a lot of good, but I have to ask why are they
making a big song and dance about it? It's the equivalent of me donating 20
bucks to charity and then going around telling everyone. If they were doing it
purely for altruistic reasons then they wouldn't even mention it. It
definitely has a commercial purpose behind it. It's better than them not doing
it, but don't fall into the trap of believing it's purely altruistic. Google
employees don't have a higher set of morals than other companies.

~~~
jrockway
The thing is, it doesn't matter. Money donated for ego purpose buys just as
many polio vaccines as money donated for strictly self-less purposes. For some
reason, we are taught that donating money should be strictly altruistic action
and we get upset when someone is doing it for publicity or whatever. But in
the end, it doesn't matter; money is money, and if people can feed their egos
(or make their company look good), and charities get money, that's fine.
Everyone benefits.

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oceanician
I'm as cynical as the next man, but at the end of the day a charity donation
is a good thing.

All companies who do it should be congratulated, not winged at.

Encourage other companies to do the same.

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malloreon
As one of Adwords' biggest advertisers, I'd like to thank Google for giving
themselves a tax write off instead of giving me a holiday gift this year and
last year.

It means a lot.

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andreyf
Also, <http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/p/cause/#tnc>

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Swizec
To be honest, I want Chrome for a cause to stay. It is one of the most fun
dick measuring contests a bunch of web fiends can have.

I wonder what this did to Chrome usage ratings?

More on topic: how many of these charitable donations have a hidden agenda?
Paying for schools in India, carefully nudging them to train engineers, having
cheaper employees? etc ...

~~~
jackolas
And to be honest it's a great way to showcase tabs.

~~~
antimatter15
Not when you hit the 250 tab max halfway through your browsing day.

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ditojim
i don't think greedy is ever a word that will be used to describe google.
ambitious, yes. greedy, no.

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joshfraser
you're welcome :)

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reason
I wish youtube videos streamed just as nicely as this one.

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erikb
Are there really still people left, who are naive enough to think that charity
really is for a good cause? It is basically just another business for rich
people/comapanies to move money around. If it would work the way you think it
does, why is Africa and South Asia still looking the same it looked 10 years
ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago?

~~~
dkokelley
This is really something for a separate discussion, but a major cause for the
poverty of the regions you mentioned have more to do with social and political
troubles than economic issues. All of the money in the world donated to a
region where warlords take it all will not make the intended recipients any
better off.

Also, there is another argument that claims direct aid actually creates
dependency, and development stalls because there is no motive to progress.

None of those arguments alone should be a reason to restrict your charitable
giving, but keep in mind that there are situations in where even the most
noble organizations will be helpless to improve a region.

~~~
erikb
I seriously think the idea of charity is flawed. There are so many things
wrong with it, that it's really hard for me to put that into a comment.

Another point, quite important and often forgotten, is that people actually
think, if they put some money in charity they did a great thing today. With a
bright smile they walk on the street of their own city, letting drugs, raping,
bad school education, homeless people and so on just happen. But that's okay.
They come in heaven now, because they did charity...

But hey, when it is a company it must be better. Because they at least
themself should know that it actually is a marketing campaign they are doing
and not helping people.

