Facebook, Google Donate Heavily To Privacy Advocacy Groups (bloomberglaw.com) 30
Few companies have more riding on proposed privacy legislation than Alphabet's Google and Facebook. To try to steer the bill their way, the giant advertising technology companies spend millions of dollars to lobby each year, a fact confirmed by government filings. From a report: Not so well-documented is spending to support highly influential think tanks and public interest groups that are helping shape the privacy debate, ostensibly as independent observers. Bloomberg Law examined seven prominent nonprofit think tanks that work on privacy issues that received a total of $1.5 million over a 18-month period ending Dec. 31, 2018. The groups included such organizations as the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Future of Privacy Forum and the Brookings Institution. The actual total is undoubtedly much higher -- exact totals for contributions were difficult to pin down. The tech giants have "funded scores of nonprofits, including consumer and privacy groups, and academics," said Jeffrey Chester, executive director at the Center for Digital Democracy, a public interest group that does not accept donations from Google or Facebook. Further, he says, their influence is strong. The companies have "opposed federal privacy laws and worked to weaken existing safeguards," Chester said. Accepting donations from these "privacy-killing companies enable them to influence decisions by nonprofits, even subtly," he said.
Piracy Advocacy Groups (Score:4, Interesting)
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Post Chirstian Sinners (Score:3)
Post Christian Sinner attempt to purchase indulgences..film at 11
Even worse - protecting monopolies. (Score:3)
They're trying to guide "privacy" in increase their monopoly on data.
Consider Google's support for DNS-over-HTTPS (to google servers, of course). Disguised as a "privacy from your ISP", it's really a way for google to increase their monopoly on your browsing behavior.
Next they'll lobby for laws saying "every company with user data needs to have a $1,000,000 budget for a chief privacy legal team"; and "only companies who are members of the internet privacy association are allowed to have PII data"; lockin
Brookings Institute? (Score:1, Insightful)
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It is sort of like the Clinton Foundation being called a Humanitarian Organization. They are called whatever they want you to think they are.
Circular (Score:3, Insightful)
They're 2/3 of the big privacy offenders. Why don't they just donate some privacy, and cut out the middleman? Oh yeah, because they're only trying to look like they care.
Re:Circular (Score:4, Insightful)
No. Quite the opposite. These "think tanks" are actively lobbying to STOP privacy laws. Most "think tanks" are doing the complete opposite of what their names are. For example, if you ever see a think tank with a title "Consumer Advocacy" you can be assured it isn't being funded for the consumer. Likewise anything that says "Public" in it, isn't. All "think tanks" are lobbying organizations that are paid for by private money. They aren't doing it for fun. That is why whenever you see the media bleating about some "study" by a "think tank" you can be assured it is complete, utter, crap. And ALL of these "think tanks" are located in Washington DC within a few block radius.
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We will never know because these think tanks will guarantee no politician will ever introduce one. There is a reason they are all located in DC.
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Effective privacy laws keep people in control of their own information. People should be able to know what has been collected, control the flow of that information to other places, and have the information removed. It's not just about who gets to share what.
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Bingo. It's sad because in theory having expert groups advising politicians should be a way to ensure decisions are made based on facts. Of course in reality greed ensures decisions are sold to the higher bidder.
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How about you post proof that these organizations they're contributing money to are bad
You know what's not what I said, right? Maybe you should learn2read
Google loves privacy not so much... (Score:3)
FTA:
The companies have "opposed federal privacy laws and worked to weaken existing safeguards,"
Executives from both companies have testified that they want Congress to preempt states because of a potential surge in local laws—often with more privacy protections than a federal bill will garner. They do support some new consumer rights, like the ability to transfer data between companies, but that could help Facebook and Google get a larger share of user data. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/... [bloomberglaw.com]
Not buying it... (Score:2)
Vampires will be vampires...
m
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Selling information devalues it. These companies want to collect it, prevent anyone else from collecting it, and sell products against it.
Re: Not buying it... (Score:2)
But das gestapo pays well...
Cynical (Score:3)
Re:Cynical (Score:4, Interesting)
For some reason I believe they want privacy regulation. On one hand it stops the madness of governments/lawyers going after them 24/7/365 and on the other hand it shuts out smaller competitors. It also slows the anti Google/Facebook brigade.
It's good PR but only because people don't grasp what it means. They are hoping to get the advocacy group drunk on tech money so they can control the narrative. If Facebook/Google etc really wanted to do good here they would invite the advocacy group in and push for certifications without the sugar daddy cash flow.
Donations are all too often just pay offs. Without a documented process and certification assuring some sort of standards and compliance then it's meaningless.
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These aren't advocacy groups. They are lobbyist organizations.
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You really picked the wrong comparison.
I'm a right-wing nutjob, and even I know that Planned Parenthood provides tremendously valuable health care to large numbers of lower income women.
Comparisons (Score:2)
These guys are to privacy as the NSA are to security.
Semantics (Score:2)
"Donate" really means "lobby". It just sounds more altruistic, when they're only trying to leverage some control over them.
We all know the formula (Score:2)
Embrace...
They should refuse the donations as TAINTED (Score:3)
Isn't that precious. (Score:2)
Clearly a feel good, useless diversionary tactic that's 100% useless without transparency.
Privacy (Score:1)
Better encryption... for their ads..