from Hacker News

Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

by subdane on 9/26/18, 5:21 PM with 352 comments

by pg_bot on 9/26/18, 6:36 PM
This "broad pattern of unaccountable decision making", also called permissionless innovation, is the reason why America has a culture of innovation. For those unaware, the United States runs on what I call "Air Bud rules", named for this scene from the children's movie.[0] To summarize, as long as there isn't a rule forbidding you from doing something, you can do it.
While I applaud his personal stance on refusing to work on a censored search engine, any solution that requires foregoing independent corporate decision making would be foolish. For those who have been tasked with building tools that support authoritarian regimes, grow a spine, make your voice heard, and quit if necessary. Don't give me any bullshit excuses for continuing, if you know it's wrong stop supporting it!
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jvf0WWxrYRM
by bilbo0s on 9/26/18, 6:13 PM
I actually applaud Poulson for leaving Google in protest of Google's Chinese business practices.
Having mentioned that, I think I have to part ways with him when he implies that the correct way to "fix" this is to have the government come in and make these sorts of business decisions for the company. I don't believe in the government obliging businesses to do things. Especially when it looks like this whole thing is Google specific. That's unfair to Google.
What about all the other American companies doing business in China? Do they get to keep doing business because they are politically popular companies but Google is not? Or would this be a government mandate of a broad based American pull out?
Or just forcing Google to let its employees have a say in how it's run? (But again, you gonna force every company? Or just Google?)
Etc etc etc.
Once government gets involved and starts playing favorites, everything gets messed up.
by jostmey on 9/26/18, 5:54 PM
My take in the issue is that Google is being mismanaged. China will not allow a foreign company to compete against its home grown search engines, so why bother? By bowing to Chinese censorship, Google hurts its public image. Google's management should have expected that its employees, who joined Google on the premise of "Do not evil", would leak this to the public. In short, the people at the top of Google look like fools to me.
by rajuvegesna on 9/26/18, 6:10 PM
Fundamental issue is the expectation that all public companies must keep growing and show profits quarter after quarter, year after year. This is obviously unsustainable.
It is like a treadmill that keeps increasing speed. If you slow down, you are thrown out.
If consecutive quarterly results are not good, CEO is typically thrown out. This pressure forces management to make unnatural decisions that might help short-term, but will hurt long-term. What we are seeing with Google with all of these recent events/decisions is a result of this, IMO.
by kyrieeschaton on 9/27/18, 1:40 AM
Google has a specific division, Jigsaw, previously Google Ideas, dedicated to advancing the interests of a group more or less synecdochic with the US State Department. They paradropped in a company of engineers to save the signature Obama administration policy proposal, at massive effective subsidy. We have just seen video and documentary evidence of them attempting to rig US elections to their favored result by massive, illegal, in-kind contributions to the Democratic party.
They are as much of a de facto agent of the deep state at this point as Lockheed, and probably more pernicious due to their attempts to cultivate self-reinforcing political power to manipulate policy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Cohen
https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/emails-show-google-e...
by romed on 9/26/18, 6:13 PM
A good thing to keep in mind is that there are hundreds of thousands of ex-googlers. The fact that one or more of them holds this belief is virtually assured.
by KKKKkkkk1 on 9/27/18, 4:05 AM
Does the New York Times have any conflicts of interest in its coverage of Google and Facebook? I can't recollect anything positive the NYT has written about those two in maybe a decade.
by IBM on 9/26/18, 6:11 PM
Brian Acton or anyone else feeling guilty about their ad-tech wealth: use your winnings to lobby for a federal privacy bill that is as strong and comprehensive as GDPR (and other EU privacy regulations).
The industry is moving to enact something that maintains the status quo [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/technology/tech-industry-...
by mzs on 9/26/18, 6:21 PM
last week
>Google hushing employees on Chinese search engine
https://www.axios.com/google-china-dragonfly-employees-searc...
by jondubois on 9/27/18, 8:49 AM
Megacorporations are a massive threat to democracy.
If we ever get into a situation where the only companies that exist are megacorps, democracy will cease to exist; not only that but it will be impossible to reform the system in the future. The government will be too weak to regulate companies and people who work at those companies will not be able to protest for change because if they lose their jobs, there will be no alternative jobs for them to survive on.
It will be permanently locked in this dysfunctional state until the end of humanity.
by paul7986 on 9/27/18, 3:59 AM
Google isn’t nice to the little guy innovators ... invite them out to discuss buying ones technology only to bait and switch you and kick you out saying the race is on. Later getting patents for what you met/discussed with them.
I’ve noted my story before and everyone says that’s just how it goes. Ummm that’s how it went for Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby til it didn’t.
Wrong and horrible behavior will eventually catch up to you or any company!
by netwanderer2 on 9/27/18, 2:31 AM
Look, if anyone wants to business in China, they would have to comply to the demands of government there, that's no question. It's common sense and nobody can avoid this. I think the question we need to ask is what motivates Google to return to this market? Does the costs and benefits analysis report show enough evidences to justify this action?
by Lin-Den on 9/26/18, 10:49 PM
The issue I see is that the United States government consistently attacks internet freedom, much more so than Google has historically. The decision to make a censored search engine may not be the best one, but it's definitely a lot better than what Alphabet would get up to if it were under the control of Congress.
by known on 9/27/18, 3:58 AM
I don't get BigCo attitude; They say Consumer doesn't know what is good and not good for them. So we will decide.
by akst on 9/26/18, 10:25 PM
Isn’t this out side the jurisdiction of US courts? This product isn’t operating in the US, so I’d be surprised if the court would do anything...
To clarify I’m not a google Stan, I don’t even use gmail, it’s just that Google isn’t the only American business to launch in China, why is google being singled out here?
by subtlefart on 9/26/18, 8:40 PM
Detractors have probably infiltrated the company
by tomphoolery on 9/26/18, 10:09 PM
He should have just published the source code.
by paradite on 9/26/18, 6:40 PM
"Hey US lawmaker, Google is trying to follow Chinese laws when operating in China, we need to stop this!"
by leopoldfreeman on 9/27/18, 3:05 AM
For these who support google's business in China, I want to ask there FxxKers, how about apply the services for you? There's an old saying in China: "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."
by pishpash on 9/26/18, 6:37 PM
> “It should be pretty obvious that they should be asked what changed between 2010 and today,” said Cynthia Wong, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.
What changed is Android, Google is losing a lot more than search, I've heard Android phones don't even work properly there. Apple phones work though.