Waiting for Google
Google has revolutionized the world of information sharing, but it can’t seem to follow up on a basic commitment it made to its shareholders five months ago.
At Google’s May 2014 shareholder meeting, we asked Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt how he would respond to shareholder calls for greater political spending transparency. Despite its “Don’t Be Evil” motto, Google funds major dark money groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and ranks among the worst of the major tech companies in political spending transparency. The amount of information it collects about users while withholding information about its own practices creates a dangerous imbalance of power.
“Let me summarize your request,” Schmidt said at the May meeting. “We need to be more transparent. And we’ve heard that from a number of other shareholders … Let us come back with some ideas.”
Google hadn’t responded to any of our more than half a dozen phone calls and emails, so last week we attended a talk by Eric Schmidt to ask him once again.
“At your shareholder meeting this year, you said that you would respond to shareholder calls for more transparency in political spending,” I said to Schmidt during the Q&A.
“Yes,” he responded.
“Are you still working on that?” I said.
“I don’t know the status of that, but we certainly promised. So maybe we can follow up on that one.”
Once again, we’re reaching out to Google but getting no follow-up. Google can clearly do better. It certainly promised.
See the full exchange in this video, starting at 45:20.
Sam Jewler is the communications and research officer for Public Citizen’s Chamber Watch program.
Google Becoming One of the Most Technologically Invasive and Politically Powerful Companies « CitizenVox
November 13, 2014 @ 1:50 pm
[…] Even the company’s shareholders have called for it to be more transparent. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt publicly acknowledged this shareholder opinion in May, and said in October that he did not know the status of efforts to follow up on those concerns, but that “we certainly promised.” […]
March 2, 2016 @ 12:05 am
Well done, but I suspect that Eric Schmidt did not fully adderss some of the major questions operators had, ie Are you trying to turn us into data pipes? (I have my opinions why this might be, but I feel it is one mobile operators do not want to hear). I could almost feel the tension when Schmidt compared Gtalk to SMS; it was chilling . I expect Google to continue to innovate in the future, but I have a feeling the old order could be scared!
March 21, 2016 @ 6:01 pm
3146 944728Wow, suprisingly I never knew this. Maintain up with excellent posts. 738513