[bestbits] Accountability group puts Google in same league as big oil and big tobacco

[Jeremy Malcolm]

On 19/7/17 9:55 pm, parminder wrote:
> But if you are indeed neutral you can perhaps tell us now what your
> view is about funding transparency of public interest organisations,
> especially those that seek to work at such scale as to be a major
> force in opinion and policy making circles (and of course unless some
> attenuating circumstances are shown which may expose that organisation
> to any real danger if it were transparent with its finding) .'
>
> And there is no reason to make it look like that such a discussion is
> not an important one for civil society groups and coalitions. Every
> outsider considers it a joke that civil society that takes its job to
> be to ask tough questions from those who exercise any kind of power
> runs away from such questions directed at itself.

I sent you the link to the paper precisely because I don't want to have
that kind of discussion on this list.  Past experience shows us how
divisive and unproductive it is.  For example, already know that some
people on this list think that researchers need to forever carry a
disclaimer that they were once hired under a Google Policy Fellowship,
whereas others think that's ridiculous.  It's a topic about which
participants can legitimately have different opinions.  Further
discussion or finger-pointing here will only produce further discord
rather than consensus.  As for my opinion, please read the paper and
you'll find out.  I'm not going to say anything more on the topic here.

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Global Policy Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://eff.org
jmalcolm at eff.org

Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161

:: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::

Public key: https://www.eff.org/files/2016/11/27/key_jmalcolm.txt
PGP fingerprint: 75D2 4C0D 35EA EA2F 8CA8 8F79 4911 EC4A EDDF 1122


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