Google endorses the Trans-Pacific Partnership
publicpolicy.googleblog.com
publicpolicy.googleblog.com
I'm under no illusion that Google's anything other massive tech-savvy advertising company, but the self-serving corporate side of the company is usually hidden behind the pretty veneer of "tech for the people". Supporting a trade agreement like the TPP (especially given the lack of transparency in the process) lacks their usual subtlety.
Convince me. I'm open. But I also want you to include counter-arguments. I want to hear both sides to reach a conclusion.
So far most anti-TPP arguments I've read are high on rhetoric and low on substance.
I think a strong nation is good for consumers, and a weak nation destroys the consumer base.
Have there been many trade agreements that were drafted by corporations instead of government representatives?
Pretty much all major trade agreements of the modern era have been largely drafted by corporate lobbyists, so, I guess "yes" is the answer you are looking for.
Why do you ask?
ISDS is in the treaty to encourage foreign direct investment in developing nations, which often do not have well-functioning, independent and fair courts the way the U.S. does.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kill-the-dispute-set...
This is just flat-out false. The second link you provided clearly lays out the criteria for resolution of a conflict via the ISDS:
> the dispute settlement provisions of this Chapter shall apply...wherever a Party considers that an actualor proposed measure of another Party is or would be inconsistent with the obligations of this Agreement or that another Party has otherwise failed to carry out its obligations under this Agreement; or wherever a Party considers thata benefit it could reasonably have expected to accrue to it under [this agreement] is being nullified or impaired as a result of the application of a measure of another Party that is not inconsistent with this Agreement.
That is, the ISDS is for resolution of conflicts which are alleged to be in violation the the treaty, not for "any measures that they can claim hurts their business". The Phillip-Morris case you cite is because PM alleges that the Australian government expropriated their intellectual property without due compensation. This post[0] has a very nice breakdown of ISDS cases, rationale, and outcomes.
Also give this thread[1] a read - SavannaJeff is a well-known professional trade economist, and has a lot of very valuable expert insight on the TPP that's worth reading.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/390p5l/over_2000000...
[1] https://np.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/2srn0u/trade_sec...
And I admit that I still have trouble seeing the plaintiffs in these cases as any kind of victims. The first of your links states that companies can use the mere existence of an ISDS mechanism to produce a real "chilling effect" on countries not even part of the dispute. Is that "fair" to the people of those countries?
But okay, there are two sides. And we know which side the "sensationalist media" is on. And also the people of Europe, who (according to your second link) drove the EU to qualify and then scuttle ISDS language in the TTIP after "a lengthy public consultative process."
So I come away wondering what is the value proposition for the public. Or is this provision all carrot?
The allegations are breach of contract by the government (Veolia), local government changing the rules after signing a contract in order to make it difficult or impossible for the company to fulfill the contract (Vattenfall), and allegations that the government seized a company's IP without due compensation (Phillip-Morris). If the claims hold up, those are three very good examples of companies being victimized by local governments. The "chilling effect" that you mention is in regards to the Phillip-Morris case, where the author speculates that PM was attempting to use the suit to discourage similar behavior in other signatory countries. It didn't work out for them[0] - the system did what it was supposed to in that case, and (properly) no chilling effect was produced. We cannot simply say that because any threat of legal action may have a chilling effect that the possibility for companies to seek legal remedies is a bad thing.
> So I come away wondering what is the value proposition for the public. Or is this provision all carrot?
The value proposition is that by having an arbitrating entity that is not likely to be under the thumb of this or that sovereign entity, companies are much more willing to conduct business in those countries when they have some assurance that their disputes against a local government won't be heard and denied by a sock puppet court controlled by that same government. It's much the same reason that we domestically use our judicial system and neutral third-party arbitration to resolve disputes, rather than just relying on counterparties to self-police themselves.
[0] http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/18/austra...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_(European_Union_law)
As to whether it applies to all treaties or just the EU ones, ... good question. In practice courts haven't really followed it.
Also, just as a data point, I've been working in Brussels for close to 20 years now and seen the evolution. I work as a consultant, so it has been a mixed bag for me. However, for just about everyone else, workers, middle class, business owners, ... it has been a consistently worsening disaster.
Having regularly worked for the EU commission, let me tell you this : any idea you may have that this organization has anything but their own economic interests at heart can be cured by chatting with one of them for 5 minutes.
The TPP would not, in US law terms, be a treaty, but a regular federal statute.
Specifically with regard to DRM I'd say they are just as ineffective, but more consumer hostile.
But this is all red herring since the TPP does not set any goals for measuring actual ENFORCEMENT, it only imposes new IP laws outside of the democratic process, with zero transparency, all while claiming to be a "free trade treaty".
Let's make it clear: Copyright laws have nothing to do with free trade. Let's suppose for a moment the US Copyright law is anywhere near "balanced" (and Canada is a caribbean pirate cove, as xxAA groups and the USTR love to claim). That still has nothing to do with Free Trade. If the Obama administration really wants to use TPP to fix all of the world's evils as they see them, why not push signatories to accept LGBT marriage for instance?
It's a large and complicated document; there's plenty of room for bad ideas, and plenty of room for good. The real question is, "Would we rather have nothing?" Because the existing ecosystem of loosely-affiliated nation-by-nation policies is a sh-tshow.
In the case of the EU, there isn't even a ratification step once the EU commission (which isn't elected) agrees to a treaty.
And of course ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_(European_Union_law)
That means that with EU commission agreement you get the supreme court (that supersedes all local courts) arguing that anything the commission agrees to can countermand local constitutions.
So local legislature agreement required, in many cases, is incorrect.
Do you know how many consumer advocacy groups are included in the negotiation process for TPP? I gather it's zero. Given the process is specifically intended to keep out consumers, why should we believe the end result will be any different?
https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/tran...
Negotiating treaties in private is normal, to prevent parties from manipulating public opinion to gain a stronger negotiating position and to prevent kneejerk outcries from the anti-trade crowd for every random provision any party proposes regardless of its likelihood to actually be in the final text. It is not about evil corporatists secretly conspiring to undermine democracy.
Negotiating treaties in private has become normal because its inconvenient to those who wish to find ways getting their pet provisions packaged into something that is hard to resist.
Isn’t this the definition of doublethink?
It will prevent the public from influencing the treaty while it is being made (prevent outcries for random provision), but it will not undermine the ability of the public to influence treaties(It is not about evil corporatists secretly conspiring to undermine democracy)
If everyone is willing to ratify a deal – that is, it's better than no deal at all – it's reasonable to take measures that make it possible for the deal to be reached in the first place.
Maybe you should move to Russia or China, and have all your deals and laws done like this.
And they give the same argument you're giving : "it's for your own good". And I bet in one case out of 10 that's actually true.
https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/tran...
It's 10x worse than the DMCA, it's anti-consumer, it advocates worse global warming and prevents people from doing anything about it, it's got disastrously bad anti-employee policies, and so on and so forth. I at one point called it the "Indians get medicine now. Let's fix that" agreement.
Why are you even defending it ? Aren't there any red flags in it from your perspective ? Because I'm pretty sure that if you aren't Lloyd Blankfein, that's guaranteed.
So why are you defending it.
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/now-we-know-why-h...
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eastwest-center/tpp-the-new-go...
The vote was 60-38.
Around that time, Clinton did refer to the secretly-written TPP as the "gold standard" in trade negotiations, but possibly due to pressure from Sanders and the rest of the party, has backed down, saying it was flawed and she doesn't support it.
Trump has also gone after the TPP numerous times, basically shoving a long-standing Republican establishment plank in their faces.
So weirdly both candidates oppose the TPP. I'm wondering if this is going to be saved for after the election, then jammed through.
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_track_(trade) http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/24/barack-obama-...
This is true. A supermajority in Congress chose to preemptively waive its filibuster, as it has routinely in such situations since the 1970s. Article 1 Section 5 of the Constitution grants each house of Congress the power to set its own rules. Many believe the filibuster shouldn't exist.
> and will receive little debate, oversight, and no amendments before the vote.
I don't understand how people are still making this argument.
The text has available for seven months at this point and no vote is in sight. There's been plenty of time for both NGOs and individuals to review. The treaty is fairly lengthy (it did take seven years to negotiate after all), but it's certainly readable.
If you're so concerned about not knowing the text, why don't you read it?
https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/tran...
Accept that free trade as a general principal is a good thing for all parties.
NAFTA and agreements modeled after it have this in common: They throw US manufacturing jobs under the bus so that we can all have more competitive, fuel efficient, cheaper, safer cars. (Hooray).
OK, so lets say we just killed ~2,000,000 'decent paying' jobs, many of them union, and did a number on hundreds of rust belt communities. Well thats fine, everyone is better off. We are saving money here. Saving Lives.
But what about other industries? Pharmaceuticals do not support nearly the number of jobs that auto industry does. Maybe 30,000 very well paying white collar jobs, people who are upwardly mobile and educated. It is widely accepted that that industry is sapping US economy of strength. We regularly pay 10X what other countries do. Why don't we open up that market to competition too!
Oh wait, thats an industry with deep connections in Washington. They rank up there with banks as the largest political donors, spend the most on lobbyists, and so on. So count them out, they don't need competition.
OK, so the standard counter argument to this is that Pharma is a special case. We let them keep the fat on their margins because... innovation! Think of all the lives we are saving by shoveling them money! If only it were that simple.
The overwhelming majority of the increase in lifespan over the past 100 years has not been modern medicine; its been public health efforts like sewars, safety standards, and as well as a handful of fluke cures like polio vaccine, penicillin, smallpox vaccine, no thanks to the pharmaceutical industrial complex.
I could go on, the point is that too often trade deals are structured to protect the politically connected and their interests while regressively opening up high employment industries to competition. So even if you believe that free trade is a great thing (I do) it is also valid to acknowledge that it has historically been adopted in a regressive way.
Medicine is by far the most flagrant example, but plenty of others.
Another valid, if more contrived argument is this: A trade agreement is a treaty. Once a treaty is passed, congress cannot easily change it; it become the domain of the executive branch and regulatory agencies specified in the treaty. So a lot of progressive critics see it as a way of creating a court system to mediate trade disputes which is not accountable to the laws that congress makes or repeals.
On example of this is the cigarette industry, which has successfully used NAFTA courts to prevent third word countries from banning sales or making labeling requirements on the grounds that it was a violation of IP and so on.
But the bigger problem is that you have this international body making decisions that effect everyone which is not directly accountable to anyone. So in its way it is a separation of powers and taxation without representation type argument which really requires deeper reading than I can provide here.
To answer the question of why "Do the right thing", it is in my opinion to support actions that they deem "right" or "good" which otherwise aren't strictly required for their operations. For example their support of gay marriage.
But, honestly, why would anyone run for president unless they were an insane egoist or craved power? It's not a job a sane person would volunteer to do.
There are a few rare individuals that do it out of desire to do good, but they seem rarer by the day.
I think Andrew Johnson ran for the Senate while still POTUS if memory serves.
So much for defending against big banks. :(
Also, I've learned to embrace incrementalism and transactional politics (quid pro quo).
Lastly, if you bring the heat, the targeted policy maker(s) will see the light. The color of their logo won't be a factor. Sanders' campaign, and massive following, absolutely moved Clinton to the left.
Examples: TPP, gay marriage etc. One could try arguing that she has evolved but MANY see her as just flip-flopping to what seems politically expedient at that time. Hence the tremendous amount of distrust.
Embrace incrementalism = let's make mediocre great again. Imagine that kind of mentality when it was announced that we were going to try to send someone to the Moon.
"Let's shoot for the moon!"
"Enh, let's just name an airport instead to build support"
I encourage you to read The Waxman Report by former US Sen Henry Waxman to get a sense of how much effort and time it takes to forge policy, move the needle.
Continue to disempower yourself thru cynicism, apathy, and inaction.
Or follow the examples of Sanders, Warren and 1000s of others and learn to convert your outrage into action.
Jill Stein has similar policy positions to Bernie Sanders, if the Sanders supporters realise this en masse she may have decent chance.
Preferably open-sourced.
The same statement is true about the Democratic party as a whole. They've been all over the place on those issues over the last two decades.
Clinton may not be as liberal as you seem to want, but she pretty clearly has had a liberal track record compared to her fellow party members: https://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hillary-clinton-was-libe...
All they can do is, like Obama did with Obamacare, run what is essentially an advertising/pressure campaign to get something passed.
There's a reason he ran as a Republican in the first place.
He doesn't really alight with either party.
But he's most certainly anti-free-trade. All of his business and money is in the US (mostly in real estate). It's in his best interest to artificially prop up US industry by shutting down inbound trade.
It is Republican orthodoxy to be against consumer and labor rights.
He has absolutely no interest in abandoning the TPP, since, as a Republican, he is in favor of exporting US jobs.
When dealing with Trump, it it important to ignore what he says, because he will literally lie 71 times in a single speech: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-fact-check_...
Trump is a real estate guy. His business is intrinsically tied to the US. He can't outsource hotel construction jobs to China. That makes being anti-globalization an easy path for him.
Moreover, more capital sloshing around in the US instead of going overseas means lower interest rates for construction loans.
First of all, HuffPo is uh, far from an unbiased source when it comes to Trump. But secondly, a lot of that stuff has very flimsy reasoning behind it:
> 11. Claim: “She wasn’t dragged to the ground.” — Trump on Fields.
> Reality: Trump implies here that Fields said she was dragged to the ground. She never did.
> She said, “I almost fell to the ground, but was able to maintain my balance,” which is what the video shows.
If you follow the link with her quote, right before the "I almost fell..." sentence, in her own words she says "Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down."
Which directly contradicts
> Reality: Trump implies here that Fields said she was dragged to the ground. She never did.
So uh, HuffPo is lying here about a time they claimed Trump is lying?
And then you get stuff like this:
> 53. Claim: “I am not soliciting money from insurance companies and from lumber companies and from banks and from — if I did, I would have made Jeb Bush look like a baby.”
> Reality: He made Bush look like a baby anyway.
Are we reaching here or what? They're seriously trying to say he's lying about not making Jeb look bad? And then you've got stuff like this:
> 40. Claim: “Only a fool would give a tax return [during an audit].”
> Realty: Lawyers do advise against doing this. But nothing about being audited prevents Trump from releasing his tax records.
So yeah, he's right that he shouldn't give out his tax return during an audit. What is he lying about here? He never said he couldn't, just that he shouldn't.
If the disclaimer the HuffPo puts on every Trump article hasn't clued you in, they've clearly got an axe to grind against him and you're not exactly guaranteed to get unbiased reporting about him from them.
(+) He's been polling in double-digits for weeks now, three points shy of the threshold for getting in the debates. That's a "current candidate" in my book.
https://mises.org/library/we-need-actual-free-trade-not-tpp
https://mises.org/blog/tpp-and-trade-rhetoric
I am pleased to report that Johnson seems to agree with them in this respect: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/off-message-transcript...
All current presidential candidates have come out against the TPP whilst running for office, that's not necessarily going to be their position if they reach the White House. Hilary Clinton was promoting the TPP before the current presidential race.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/...
This is a clear break from the EFF's position (https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp) and a strong indication of their increasing closed door ties with the Obama administration.
This is what I want when I grow up. I want this power.
Competition & Business Facilitation
Competition Policy
Cooperating & Capacity Building
Cross Border Trade in Services
Customs Administration & Trade Facilitation
Development
Dispute Settlement
Electronic Commerce
Environment
Financial Services
Government Procurement
Intellectual Property
Investment
Labour
National Treatment & Market Access for Goods
Regulatory Coherence
Rules of Origin and Origin Procedures
Sanitary & Phytosanitary Measures
Small & Medium-sized Businesses
State-Owned Enterprises
Technical Barriers to Trade
Telecommunications
Temporary Entry for Business Persons
Textiles & Apparel
Trade Remedies
Transparency & Anti-Corruption
This is especially true when you consider that much of the EFF's criticism of the IP section is over provisions that are already in effect in the US, and to a lesser extent in Europe. For instance, the US and Europe already have the 70 year copyright term, and the US and Europe already have anti-circumvention measures (DMCA in the US, the Copyright Directive [1] in the EU). Basically, many of the things the EFF objects to ALREADY APPLY to Google in most of Google's markets.
A core purpose of the EFF is to keep IP law from spinning out of control, and to roll back the places where it already has (which is pretty much everywhere). This would be more nearly impossible than it already is if the US laws calcify into treaty form, which is a very good reason for them to oppose the TPP.
Is the only way for progress to happen?
And even if the TPP is completely beneficial, it is still part of the philosophy of economic integration. Which at its heart is promoting the centralization of power and the diminishment of classical liberalism.
The cynic in me says thinks of the TPP as a gigantic pile of economic concessions to specific corporate interests.
The more generous interpretation is that free trade creates winners and losers, but there's generally more winners than losers. The length of the agreement is then the result of multilateral negotiations. Each party realizes - in excruciating detail - how they're getting screwed, and attempts to negotiate concessions for agreeing to the entire thing.
Even selling a company for just 8-figures is more than 5-10 pages and these deals far eclipse that amount and probably directly involve hundreds of people if not thousands.
Here's the full text. https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/tran...
Google mentioned in their press release that they were not happy about the secrecy in the negotiations. The negotiations were secret for the same reason diplomatic cables are secret. These agreements would involve things like Japan agreeing to to stop subsidizing rice farmers as long as it can keep its high auto tariffs for a few decades. It's nasty stuff, embarrassing to watch the sausage get made. But maybe it was a bad idea to do it all in secrecy.
It's not like spy exchange negotiations or all other sorts of diplomatic processes are public. And it's not that things are unfit for the public per se, just that publishing each move isn't beneficial.
Yikes I never thought I'd be defending TPP-like processes. Personally I think we're (the world) not yet ready for this level of globalisation, unfortunately.
Whether or not "publishing each move" is beneficial depends on what "each move" is. I agree that at the most fine grained level, you don't want everyone to find out how far you were willing to go in conversations with one opposing negotiator, in case you need to negotiate similar clauses with someone else, for example.
But once you have agreed that you're giving X in return for Y, publishing that should not do much harm unless giving X is controversial. In which case the "harm" might be exactly what ought to happen.
Here's another example, which is more relevant:
During Norways EEA negotiations with the EU, the Norwegian press reported details pretty much daily. I just checked the archive of one of Norways largest papers to confirm my memory, and from '90 to '92, EEA was mentioned about 5000 times, and included things like government ministers informing the press about likely contents of Norwegian negotiation positions that had not yet been presented to the EU (but where the overall lines of the EU position was known - in one case I looked at, the minister confirmed that the Norwegian position would overall come close to what the EU had asked for in terms of regulation of granting operating licenses for EU companies in certain areas).
They certainly did not get access to everything, but they got regular briefings, and it contributed to ensuring the debate over whether or not to join the EEA shaped the negotiations, as the sitting, pro-EEA government got very clear signals about which concessions would cause the biggest problems with the opposition and/or cost them voters.
> If you made TPP a concise document with 5-10 specific objectives they would all be litigated for decades to decide on the very same special cases that are detailed in the 2,000 page agreement.
I started reading the TPP today, but I didn't get far enough to form an opinion, although I suspect that would be ideal. In a world changing as fast as ours having an agreement span 3 decades seems laughable.
This key point seems to get lost in the debate.
> It prohibits discrimination against foreign Internet services
As a Dutchman I can see why Google likes this.
In Canada we have laws that protect personal health data. For instance my doctor cannot save my patient data outside of the country. This is a major pain for SAAS vendors, and I understand google's position. However, as a patient I appreciate knowing that my personal health data is not being sent around the world to other jurisdictions that may not have the same privacy and data protection laws that we do here.
So, I have to wonder do we have a problem of countries requiring local storage for reasons that are questionable? Or is this simply a preemptive strike ensuring companies like google continue their easy access to global markets? Given my example above I suggest its the latter.
Having your bits stored on Canadian soil doesn't magically make them secure. The emphasis should be on security, not physical location.
It may be possible to come up with a list of reasonably similar and friendly countries where such restrictions are dropped, because they agree to similar protections, and form a kind of common data-storage zone. For example, I am probably okay with reputable Canadian or German companies being contracted to store sensitive data. We could have a treaty formalizing what that zone is and what common protections will be applied. But the TPP is not by any reasonable stretch of the imagination that zone. The TPP includes countries where being homosexual is a serious crime, for example. Is it really wise for the U.S. government to agree to be bound by treaty not to take measures to keep its citizens' medical data, student records, employment records, etc. out of those countries' hands?
Let me put it another way. Someone has to decide where it's safe to send and store private data. Right now, in many cases, it's the government. Why do we think that the government is properly equipped to make that decision for us? Make sure you don't give your medical records to any shady companies. Corporations with international operations and teams of lawyers are probably better equipped to determine where data can be safely secured than some random regulator.
That said, as as long as TPP only requires that there is no discrimination, that should not affect the EU rules much other than perhaps requiring the EU to put more resources into determine which countries have laws and governments that makes it possible for local companies in those countries to abide by the EU regulations.
stronger privacy laws are outlawed if they amount to an “arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on trade.”
it would seem that google's opinion is that protecting my health data is a restriction on trade. That's why I'm concerned with the TPP.
It is not fair to consider internet being global and borderless when it is in corps advantage, but segmented and controlled when it comes to consumers rights. Right?
I think the majority of the treaty is terrible, spreading laws that prop up businesses based on copyright and patents, and on balance I think that no country should adopt it.
In this one particular case, it appears to remove artificial restrictions that prevent consumers from doing business with companies they otherwise want to do business with. I'm in favor of that, whether it's "you can't block a company from providing a service to a person in country X who wants that service just because they don't store data in country X" or "you can't block a company from providing a service to a person in country X who wants that service just because the company doesn't provide an identical service to a person in country Y". Either way, you're preventing two parties who want to work with each other from doing so.
(Also, keep in mind that many of the "must store data locally" laws have less to do with protecting that data and more to do with making it available for attempted seizure.)
If the people of a given country want to refuse to use a particular service because it stores their data elsewhere, or doesn't have a local presence, or shows them a different selection than people in other countries, or any of a thousand other reasons, they can already choose to do so. But there's a huge difference between choosing not to use a service and preventing anyone else from using it.
I don't directly care about the profits of companies, large or otherwise, except to the extent those profits mean they've built something people want. I do care when people can't use a service they want because their country doesn't think they should or wants to prop up another. And I care when a company owned, operated, and staffed within one country suddenly has to worry about another country's government, rather than just what their users want.
Let's say Japan has the following two laws:
1. "Google cannot conduct business in Japan unless they store their data in Japan"
2. "Netflix cannot conduct business in Japan unless they allow complete access to all content"
Who does law (1) benefit, and who will be benefited if it goes away?
Same for (2).
> (Also, keep in mind that many of the "must store data locally" laws have less to do with protecting that data and more to do with making it available for attempted seizure.)
I think any government that would be interested in this, wouldn't sign the TPP agreement in the first place.
The scenario you envision is "law blocks doing business in the country, so the business changes their practices". The more common scenario, for the majority of countries in the world, is "law blocks doing business in the country, so the people in that country don't get the service until enough people complain and the law goes away, or people find a way around the block if they want the service enough".
How about this one: "Whatsapp cannot conduct business in Brazil unless they make their customers' data available to the government on demand". ("End-to-end encrypted? That doesn't sound like 'yes sir how would you like that delivered sir' to me.")
Just for the record and for not getting misunderstood, my opinion and what I support is to break any artificial borders on the Internet, which means that on one hand a corps may choose to store the data wherever they think is better, but also prevent the corps from altering their service based on a persons location.
For my own part, I support breaking any artificial borders on the Internet as well. But rather than adding a restriction like "can't do business with a company if they offer different services to different locations", I'd instead remove any restrictions that might affect someone who simply purchased the service as provided in a different locale. (The company can try to block accessing other versions of the service, but that's a technical problem, and solvable with a technical solution. If the company can tell where in the world you are, we haven't made the Internet good enough yet.)
For that matter, geographical restrictions on media depend on restrictive copyright laws to have any effect at all. So I don't support adding a restriction to "solve" a problem artificially propped up by another restriction.
If the proposal on the table was a law/treaty to prevent people from accessing the service as sold to a country other than their own, then I think we'd both agree that's a bad idea and oppose it.
An open, public endorsement of something that most tech enthusiasts who use their products know is a bad thing, is a very surprising move. I'm pretty sure I've seen a number of Google employees condemning the TPP in the last year or two as well.
I very much doubt most of their users could even tell you what it stood for, let alone have an opinion on its value.
[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/23/americans-fa...
That survey was from Spring (only a US company would forget that the other hemisphere has a different season) 2015. That was prior to the TPP being publicly available. Attitudes seem to have changed considerably since then.
Trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are beginning to recognize the Internet’s transformative impact on trade.
I clearly don't support TPP in the first place, but I find this announcement from Google borderline insulting, TPP or not. The condescending tone alone makes me cringe, but the whole "we're fighting for freedom" cover story is just disgusting.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/12/how-tpp-will-affect-yo...
This is really it, I think. Makes sense. They don't want another China to happen to them.
>These provisions will support the Internet’s open architecture and make it more difficult for TPP countries to block Internet sites -- so that users have access to a web that is global, not just local.
I do however believe that there is a aspect that has been overlooked here. Many cooperations, private and governmentally controlled, handle sensitive data. Having a SLA with Microsoft, Amazon or Google that states that this highly sensitive data is ONLY to be stored in specific data centers is the only way for a lot of non flexible IT departments to regain some control over their data. This is a widely popular demand. I can only see this as the "X eyes" with USA in charge removing one more hurdle in their way to total information control.
http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/The-implications-for-s...
I thought it was a very enjoyable way to learn about the agreement and why one might oppose it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3503000/Hillary-Clin... http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279...
She said she supported it while it was being negotiated, and later (as a candidate, when the final text was available) said she opposed the final form, and that it no longer had the specific features she expected the final form would have when she supported it.
The timing of this is peculiar, but if it has nothing to do with HRC, we'll simply have to wait and see if that is the case.
If it had to do with HRC, they could wait; if anything connected to the election, it has to do with their actual support for TPP and concern that no successor to Obama will approve it, so their best chance is for it to get passed and signed this year (given the statements already made by Republican leaders that that isn't going to happen before the general election, probably in the lame duck session after the election.)
But they won't, because they're doubling down.
Bing is alright, to be honest (some of their data widgets are more comprehensive than Google's), but you will find times with Bing that you are sad with the results.
That's the killer feature for me: it actually obeys "advanced search" operators.
At a fundamental level, US defining and guiding the world economic order as it has done with Bretton woods.
Can you explain it from your point of view? These first 2 minutes repeated 'strong United States' about five times already or so. Is that what you consider 'geopolitical reasons'?
1) Data protection regulation that would severely impact Google.
Google is kinda caught in the crossfire here. The EU is upset at the US intelligence community (Post-Snowden), and wishes to have some assurance of protection for their citizen's communication. The USG does not see why it should do this, and the data protection regulation is the EU's way of saying: If we can't get you to cooperate by being friendly, we will have to pass legislation that will hurt US companies; they can then perhaps pay lobbyists to change your mind. So it is not really Googles fault, but they are caught in the middle.
2) Anti-Trust considerations.
Google is extremely dominant in the European market, much more so than in the US. See #3. The momentum for an Antitrust case in the EU is high.
3) Industrial policy considerations.
Right now, the EU does not have an "Internet powerhouse"; there simply are no modern Internet giants in the EU. Interestingly, both China and Russia have "inadvertently" created local giants (mostly by censorship, which has had the strange side-effect of being equivalent to import tariffs, but for Internet services -- e.g. an accidental protectionist measure that allowed local competition to emerge). Some voices have been heard in recent months that advocate that the only way the EU won't get entirely left behind is industrial policy toward creating an internet giant. This could even mean blocking US-based giants for a while.
If TPP passes, Google will have a very powerful tool to wield against these three concerns. It is entirely rational of them to support it.
And just today, Google was accused of whitewashing Hillary Clinton's record and not showing negative autocomplete terms [2].
Google's "don't be evil" mantra is just a way to inoculate themselves from criticism. If anyone accuses them of anything unethical or evil or inappropriate, they can always claim how they are "not doing anything evil" because that's their policy. It becomes circular logic.
Assange has exposed Google's close ties to the State Department in the past as well. For example, give this NY Times article a read [3]. If you want to see how deep the rabbit hole goes, Assange also published a book about his meeting with Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen of Google [4] and he published the complete transcript of their meeting. He also covered how Jared Cohen, formerly a State Department employee, was involved in regime changes around the world while at Google.
Assange also states that in 2015 former Google CEO Eric Schmidt launched “The Groundwork,” a startup specifically designed to get Clinton elected. [5]
Finally, Clinton's email release also confirmed that Google was involved in helping Syrian rebels who were trying to bring down the Syrian regime [6].
[0] http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/google-wor...
[1] https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close...
[2] http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-google-search-vi...
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/opinion/sunday/the-banalit...
[4] https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/
[5] http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/09/julian-assange-google-is-i...
[6] http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...
That would seem to adequately explain why they might block them...
Guess what? A week and a half ago you got 'crooked Hilllary' now you don't, and it's nowhere to bed found....
They censored the results in her favor, no doubt about it.
That was a pretty silly accusation. It was mostly based on comparing Google autocomplete terms to Bing and Yahoo autocomplete terms. To show a pro-Clinton bias on the part of Google what you need to concentrate on is comparing Google autocomplete terms for Clinton searches to Google autocomplete terms for other people.
Do that experiment and you find that the kind of things that appear to be removed from Clinton autocomplete are also removed from the autocomplete of many other people, including many politicians, current and past celebrities, and criminals.
There is a good discussion of how Google tries to avoid autocompletes that could be seen as disparaging here [1].
[1] http://www.clayburn.wtf/2016/06/google-probably-isnt-manipul...
"...Our Autocomplete algorithm will not show a predicted query that is offensive or disparaging when displayed in conjunction with a person’s name..."
So, I guess somebody at Google is deciding what is offensive or disparaging? And we shoulld trust that the standard is being applied equally to both parties, in spite of Google having a vested interest in the Democrats? OK, let's see.
There is a VERY VERY popular nickname for Secretary Clinton, "Crooked Hillary", which has been widely reported on, and is all over Twitter. So let's try:
"Crooked Hil" -> The final item in the list is "Crooked Hillary Bernie". Which makes no sense. Why not remove it entirely?
Now let's try Trump.
"Crooked Tru" -> First item on the list is "Crooked Trump". Which isn't even a meme or anything.
Politics is full of offensive and disparaging statements. By censoring those terms, Google is presenting a worse search product to the world.
Things only start changing when it gets bad enough to walk away.
TPP must be ditched because it's an abomination in the current form, and it's not fixable because of "fast track".
Google should officially change from "don't be evil" to "be evil" now.
If they are so proud, surely a banner on Google is appropriate. It's for a good cause after all.
Senator Obama opposed quite a few things as well.
Well, yes, people lie. My point was that Donald Trump wasn't a special case in terms of his position on the TPP.
Hahahahahahaha.
Seems like "criminal" and "indictment" are filtered out, which happens to benefit Hillary but seems to apply to other people. I tried a indicted people and it didn't autocomplete.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/10/google-denie...
http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/10/technology/hillary-clinton-g...