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Google Forms Google NetPAC Political Action Committee
It sounds like Google's figured out that's it's not enough to be on the right side of certain political battles, like Network Neutrality. By starting a PAC, Google should be better positioned to 'educate' Washington on important issues.
Google will flex political muscles / PAC to raise money for causes, candidates; lobbyists on board
"Google filed paperwork Thursday to register its political action committee, Google NetPAC, with the Federal Election Commission. The company intends to use the committee "to support candidates who promote an open and free Internet for our users," according to Alan Davidson, Google's Washington policy counsel.
In addition, Google bolstered its clout by hiring former Republican Sens. Dan Coats of Indiana and Connie Mack of Florida as outside lobbyists. The political veterans may go a long way in building Google's ties with Republicans, a group widely considered to be the opposition based on the overwhelming preference by Google employees to make campaign contributions to Democrats."
The company seems to work from a mindset that everyone shares their interests and world view. If that was the case, there would be no need for a PAC, there wouldn't be a need for an Adwords sales team (people would just 'get' that they need to use Adwords), and there would be no search engine spam because people would share Google's relevancy goals.
If only life was that simple.
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2. Posted by: Ed Kohler on September 18, 2006 4:21 PM:
Interesting point, HandsOff. My guess is that Google sees Network Neutrality as a way to foster the free market that exists on the Internet today.
Clearly, a case could be made that the same standard should be applied to the Internet itself.
Is Google's position on this issue hypocritical? Perhaps, but it's also seems to be well reasoned to me.
By the way, who provides the funding for HandsOffTheInternet?
3. Posted by: Watchful Eye on September 18, 2006 4:51 PM:
Being for free market and free enterprise not necessarily mean that you have to blindly trust corporations to make decisions in the best interest of the people. Corporate America has shown this to be especially true in the last 10 years. Google is supporting free market and free enterprise with OVERSIGHT, which companies today desperately need
4. Posted by: HandsOff on September 19, 2006 1:48 PM:
Watchful Eye, my issue is not necessarily a lack of trust in corporations to make decisions in the best interest of the people. Having worked on the Hill, my concern lies more with Congress. When given the opportunity to regulate anything, but especially something as technically complex as the Internet, Congress more often than not regulates the entity to within an inch of its life and leaves the situation exponentially more convoluded than had it never intervened.
And Ed, I agree that Google's position is well reasoned in so far as it's in the best interests of Google, but I still have trouble reconcilling a free market and congressionally mandated business practices. You can find lots of information on HandsOffTheInternet at the About Us page.
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1. Posted by: HandsOff on September 18, 2006 6:41 AM:
As a matter of full disclosure, I work on net neurtality issues, but my views expressed here are my own. In reading the article which you quote, I was puzzled by a statement from a Google executive saying, "Openness and innovation and free markets are values shared by both parties." The exec seems to be praising the value of free markets, but doesn't Google's support of net neutrality dictate a distrust of free markets and free enterprise?