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<p>Quotes from the below article, which connects to the discussion
(or non discussion) we recently had here on Google's funding of
non profit/ academic research in digital area. <br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Firing
Lynn and his team “raises a lot of questions,” a Warren
aide told HuffPost. Warren, herself, later tweeted her
concerns.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">A
senior aide to a progressive House Democrat, who commented
on the condition of anonymity, called the firings “an
example of the way that funding think tanks is a way to
achieve policy outcomes, in the same way that lobbying and
funding campaigns is. It’s a business expense.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Jonathan
Taplin, the author of <i>Move Fast and Break Things: How
Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and
Undermined Democracy</i>, was more blunt in his
assessment of what happened at New America.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">“It’s
just classic monopoly muscle,” he told HuffPost. “This is
the way bullies act.”</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="+2"><b><span
style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Google Just Proved That
Monopolies Imperil Democracy, Not Just The Economy</span></b></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"> <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/google-monopoly-barry-lynn_us_59a738fde4b010ca289a1155?section=us_politics">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/google-monopoly-barry-lynn_us_59a738fde4b010ca289a1155?section=us_politics</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Barry
Lynn and his team of anti-monopoly researchers were fired by a
think tank after criticizing the search giant.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">WASHINGTON
― For the past decade, former business journalist Barry Lynn has
used his perch at the New America Foundation to warn politicians
and the public that <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/barry-lynn-washington-corporations_us_57c8a6a7e4b0e60d31de6433">a
new era of corporate monopolies threatened not only American
workers, but also democracy itself.</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Lynn
was just proven right: New America has fired him as head of its
Open Markets program along with his team of about 10 researchers
and journalists, after they called for an antitrust
investigation of the think tank’s largest longtime donor,
Google.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">On
June 27, the Open Markets team in a <a
href="https://www.newamerica.org/open-markets/press-releases/open-markets-applauds-european-commissions-finding-against-google-abuse-dominance/">150-word
statement</a> called for the Federal Trade Commission to
follow the lead of the European Union, which leveled a $2.7
billion fine on Google for violating antitrust laws. Since New
America’s <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/15/arts/silicon-valley-s-new-think-tank-stakes-out-radical-center.html">start
in 1999</a>, Google has given it $21 million. And Eric
Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet, Inc., Google’s
parent company, served as New America’s chairman from 2008
through mid-2016.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">According
to a <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/politics/eric-schmidt-google-new-america.html?_r=0">report
on Wednesday in The New York Times</a>, Lynn was called on the
carpet by New America head Anne-Marie Slaughter shortly after
the Open Markets program praised the E.U.’s decision to find
Google in violation of antitrust law for providing preferential
placement to its own products and those of its subsidiaries over
its rivals in search results. Schmidt, the Times reported, had
expressed to Slaughter his “displeasure” with the statement
backing the E.U.’s move.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Slaughter,
according to an email obtained by the Times, told Lynn that he
and his team had to leave New America. The firing was, “in no
way based on the content of your work,” she wrote, while also
saying Lynn was “imperiling the institution as a whole.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Two
current members of the Open Markets team confirmed this timeline
of events to HuffPost. Lynn and his Open Markets colleagues were
told to depart New America two days after the statement that
supported the E.U. antitrust fine and called upon “U.S.
enforcers” to “build upon this important precedent<i>. </i>The
team, though, stuck around in an attempt to question New
America’s leadership about whether it really wanted to fire the
entire group.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">“We
were trying to be, like, ’Are you sure you want to do this
because it sort of seems bad,” Matt Stoller, a fellow at the
Open Markets Program, told HuffPost. “Are you sure you want to
prove us right? Are you sure you want to back a monopoly in such
an obvious and clumsy way? We were negotiating with them.”
(Stoller is an occasional HuffPost contributor.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Despite
those negotiations, Slaughter on Wednesday officially terminated
Lynn and his team. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Slaughter
disputed the Times story, saying in a <a
href="https://www.newamerica.org/new-america/press-releases/new-americas-response-new-york-times/">statement</a> that
the claim “that Google lobbied New America to expel the Open
Markets program” was “false.” Instead, she said that Lynn
refused “to adhere to New America’s standards of openness and
institutional collegiality.” She offered no explanation for
firing the entire Open Markets team.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">A
Google spokeswoman denied any involvement in Lynn’s firing in an
email to HuffPost. She also said that Schmidt did not threaten
to cut off funding for the think tank because of the Open
Markets statement on Google’s antitrust fine.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">“We
support hundreds of organizations that promote a free and open
Internet, greater access to information, and increased
opportunity,” Riva Sciuto, the Google spokesperson, said in the
statement. “We don’t agree with every group 100 percent of the
time, and while we sometimes respectfully disagree, we respect
each group’s independence, personnel decisions, and policy
perspectives.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">New
America did not immediately respond to a request for comment to
HuffPost.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Lynn
is now building an independent think tank to continue his
anti-monopoly work with his New America team. The group has
already <a href="https://citizensagainstmonopoly.org/">launched
a campaign</a> aimed at mobilizing public opposition to the
power of modern-day monopolies by highlighting Google’s power to
quash independent research like that by the Open Markets team.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Its
supporters say this case underscores that argument.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Lynn
and his colleagues “have long argued that monopolies are a
problem for the economy, but they’re also a problem for
democracy,” Zephyr Teachout, a fellow at Open Markets and board
member of its new campaign ― called Citizens Against Monopolies
― told HuffPost. “This kind of proves the point.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">It’s
not as though the Open Markets team needed to get fired to
buttress their concerns about monopoly power. Their efforts
already have been influential ― more so than work by many other
think tanks.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">The
Democratic Party recently adopted the team’s warnings about
monopolies in its <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democrats-antitrust_us_5976572fe4b0a8a40e817612">“A
Better Deal” platform</a>. Politicians ― including Sens.
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Cory
Booker (D-N.J.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) ― are pushing for
enhanced antitrust enforcement and calling out concentrations of
economic power more than before.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Open
Markets has helped lead the economic debate to a “more populist
strain over the past couple of years,” Marshall Steinbaum, a
fellow at the progressive economics think tank Roosevelt
Institute, told HuffPost.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Firing
Lynn and his team “raises a lot of questions,” a Warren aide
told HuffPost. Warren, herself, later tweeted her concerns.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">A
senior aide to a progressive House Democrat, who commented on
the condition of anonymity, called the firings “an example of
the way that funding think tanks is a way to achieve policy
outcomes, in the same way that lobbying and funding campaigns
is. It’s a business expense.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Jonathan
Taplin, the author of <i>Move Fast and Break Things: How
Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined
Democracy</i>, was more blunt in his assessment of what
happened at New America.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">“It’s
just classic monopoly muscle,” he told HuffPost. “This is the
way bullies act.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">The
internal workings of New America, though, is not the real
issue, Stoller said. The public needs to recognize Google as an
autocratic private power that is exerting itself in the economy
and in policy to increase its own power over people, he argued.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">“We
love a lot of the people at New America,” Stoller said. “We
think their work is great. ... This is not an issue of New
America. This is an issue about monopoly and Google.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">And
Google is undeniably a monopoly. <a
href="http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-google-monopoly-2014-9">Just
ask monopoly proponent and billionaire investor Peter Thiel</a>,
who has said the company is able to offer so many wonderful
perks to its employees because it doesn’t have to worry too much
about competition. It controls <a
href="http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-search_engine-US-monthly-201608-201608-bar">80
percent</a> of the market for online search and <a
href="http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-search_engine-US-monthly-201608-201608-bar">54
percent</a> of the browser market in the U.S.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Google
and Facebook, another powerful online platform monopoly, have <a
href="https://www.recode.net/2017/5/2/15516674/global-ad-spending-charts">gobbled
up practically every new online advertising dollar</a> (thanks
to their past acquisitions of online advertising companies) in
recent years while <a
href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/platform-press-how-silicon-valley-reengineered-journalism.php">pressuring
news organizations</a>, including HuffPost, to publish
directly to their platforms. Google’s control of internet search
has given it the power to squeeze money away from other websites
(see: <a
href="https://theoutline.com/post/1399/how-google-ate-celebritynetworth-com">CelebrityNetWorth.com</a>
and <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/technology/yelp-google-european-union-antitrust.html?mcubz=3">Yelp.com</a>).
Google’s dominant position as an advertising seller has also
given it <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/business/media/google-facebook-news-media-alliance.html?mcubz=3">increasing
power over newsrooms</a> (although not as much as Facebook). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">The
company ― which once went by the motto “Don’t be evil” ― has
also sought to replicate its economic power in political and
policy spheres.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Google
has previously sought to pressure a nonprofit over its criticism
of the company. In 2009, Google’s head of public policy reached
out to the foundation funding the California-based Consumer
Watchdog to warn it about continuing to underwrite the work by
the pro-privacy group. That work was critical of many of
Google’s privacy policies.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">In the
past decade, Google also has poured tens of millions of dollars
into campaign contributions, lobbying firms, think tanks and
policy nonprofits in the past decade.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">This
political investment soared after 2011 when Google’s antitrust
issues first came under the microscope. Its lobbying expenses
doubled from $9.6 million in 2011 to $18.2 million in 2012, and
have not fallen below $15 million since. In 2011, Google gave
grants to 44 different nonprofits and think tanks. That number
jumped to 81 in 2012 and now sits at 170.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Goggle
executives enjoyed <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close-relationship-with-the-obama-white-house-in-two-charts/">unrivaled
access</a> to the White House under President <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/barack-obama">
Barack Obama</a>, visiting hundreds of times, according to
Secret Service visitor logs. Google has also pumped <a
href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/paying-professors-inside-googles-academic-influence-campaign-1499785286">millions
of dollars into research at universities</a>, often to
buttress its public policy positions, and is <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/technology/google-education-chromebooks-schools.html">pushing
its own agenda for public school education</a> across the
country.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Google’s
huge increase in political investment post-2011 was in direct
reaction to the Federal Trade Commission <a
href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/25/business/la-fi-google-ftc-20110625">opening
an antitrust investigation</a> into whether it abused its
market position in internet searches. The FTC commissioners
eventually dropped the investigation in exchange for small
concessions by the company, despite <a
href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-u-s-antitrust-probe-of-google-1426793274">a
report by the agency’s legal team that labeled Google a
“monopoly”</a> and supported a full investigation.</span></p>
<span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">“The ‘A’ word is the one
thing that can stop the music,” Luther Lowe, Yelp’s vice president
of public policy, said of Google’s interest in antitrust issues.
“It’s the one that’s an all-hands-on-deck situation.”</span>
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