from Hacker News

Google: new concerns raised about political influence by ‘revolving door’ jobs

by alt_ on 6/5/16, 10:25 AM with 26 comments

• by phantom_oracle on 6/5/16, 8:44 PM

  The most important piece of the article:

  > Questions have been raised about who funds the Google Transparency Project. The CfA declined to say, and this prompted suspicion that it is bankrolled by rival media and internet companies keen to check the company’s power.

  If you're going to be a transparency-watchdog, it helps that your own organization remains transparent as well.

• by _audakel on 6/5/16, 8:35 PM

  I'm not sure how this is very different than Goldman saches both hiring former members of the SEC and having many of its employees go on to fill top financial regulatory positions in government. People are not up in arms about that. I am sure other top banks in Europe do similar things ie have people they can influence in top positions or hire them.

  It is mostly likely google is the nrw kid on the block trying this sort of thing, and the first tech company to try it at this extent. People just don't like change, and the people who used to have that power (large financial institutions ) don't like that the weird kids from palo alto are moving in their territory

• by ppod on 6/5/16, 6:19 PM

  The UK is, relatively speaking, not a corrupt country, but this is one of its biggest problems. The magazine Private Eye basically every week lists out multiple cases where well-paid managers have moved between government and industry and used influence of one to help their friends in the other. Nobody seems to pay it too much attention. But you build one duck-moat..

• by bla2 on 6/6/16, 2:21 AM

  Does anyone here know who funds CfA? Or how these "revolving door" numbers compare to any other company? Feels like a smear campaign.

• by kneel on 6/5/16, 7:29 PM

  Google has collected vasts amount of information and they can recruit skill and develop almost any type of software they want.

  It seems like a no brainer they're going to play an ever growing role in government.

  How big a role do they play? What is the limits?

• by shkkmo on 6/5/16, 11:45 PM

  Perhaps we should requires some sort of "non-compete" like clause to limit regulators accepting jobs at the companies they were regulating?

• by fo_rill on 6/5/16, 10:14 PM

  The more I see the name "Alphabet" the more crooked and untrustworthy everything associated with it feels.

  It will be a cancerous flaw staining the reputation that Google has thus far earned, until it goes away.

  It feels like a pre-emptive "Altria" or "Xe Services" type rebrand, and it smells foul and deceptive.