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

[Yosem Companys]

I agree with Jeremy.

There's a scientific research literature on the impact of money on people
and organizations, whether they are researchers or government officials and
universities or private companies.

In resource dependence theory
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_dependence_theory>, an organization
that provides resources to a person (or organization) puts the latter in a
dependent position because the latter depends on the former for resources.

In empirical evidence, the extent of the dependence is influenced a lot by
how the resources are awarded. In other words, the devil is in the details.
In this case, the devil is in the details of the contract.

For example, research has shown that universities (or university
departments) that receive money from private corporations with strings
attached tend to conform to the dictates of the funding entity. But many
university departments receive money with no strings attached, so inferring
a dependence in such a situation would be wrong.

In a different vein, research has shown that companies that rely on one
supplier tend to follow the dictates of that supplier. Think the car
industry and oil companies. Cars have internal combustion engines that rely
on gasoline, and the gas industry is an oligopoly. So the gas industry as a
supplier exerts significant control over car manufacturers. If the market
were more competitive, car manufacturers would not be as dependent. This is
one reason the electric car has taken so much time to build.

Going back to our discussion, as Jeremy notes, EFF has received Google
funding but has also been at times one of the fiercest critics of the
company. I assume that is because EFF doesn't have a contractual obligation
to do Google's bidding based on that funding.

Similarly, Google donated a significant amount of money to start Stanford
Liberationtech, yet Stanford Liberationtech regularly critiqued Google when
the company's actions went contrary to the spirit of Liberationtech.

To say that everyone who gets money from an entity is beholden to that
entity is the same as saying that anyone connected to a nefarious
individual is nefarious. Correlation does not imply causation. One needs to
examine the details of the relationships (the how and why) to know for sure.

That said, in the U.S., we tend to hold openness and transparency as a
public good, meaning that both people and organizations should disclose the
origins of their resources and let people evaluate their actions both on
their merits and relationships. For example, that is why we have SEC filing
disclosures for public companies.

At universities like Stanford, we teach our students not to take what they
read for granted. We ask them always to ask who the author of a written
piece is. Everyone should do the same.

What is the author's biography? How and why has the author chosen to write
about a particular subject? What are the author's relationships to specific
people and organizations?

Often the answers to these questions tell you a lot you need to know about
whether to take the work seriously or not. But again it is because of the
why and how and not the what of the relationships.

Just my two cents,
Yosem

On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 11:02 AM, Jeremy Malcolm <jmalcolm at eff.org> wrote:

> 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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