Google's Clunky Moves Into Politics Includes Trying To Silence Politicians Offering It Tax Breaks
from the whoops dept
A decade or so ago, it was Microsoft that was having trouble learning the game of dealing with politicians. The company was caught unaware as it faced anti-trust actions. Lately, it's been Google that's appeared especially amateurish in its dealings with politicians. The latest is the story coming out of North Carolina about Google's heavy handed attempts to get certain tax breaks in place in order to open up a data center in North Carolina. Apparently, Google representatives threatened to pull the whole project over some wording changes and also tried to ban politicians from talking about the fact that Google would be such a large beneficiary of the tax break. Apparently, "do no evil" is morphing into some variation on "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."
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The Welfare Industry
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Ok We get it you are building big data centers in places what could really use the jobs and investment, but do youhave to trample over all that good will by sending in your gag order wielding lawyers?
I mean municipal Taxes are usually in the public domain no?
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The Truth vs. Non-disclosure in public affairs
The truth will set you free.
Non-disclosure will void the mantra "do no evil".
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Well...
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Is this anything unusual?
Now I agree that these things shouldn't be kept so secret. Balancing the company's need to keep it's plans to itself vs the citizens need to know what's going on is tricky. My guess is that a larger town would not be able to pull this off at all as the elected officials might not have the autonomy to act without full disclosure. Maybe this one doesn't either.
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Don't tax breaks have to be revealed under FOI law
Why don't Google go to north Canada, where they can set up dehumidifiers on the ventilation system adn use the naturally cold air to cool thier servers? This would surely offest the cost of laying the fibre within a few years, especially with the tax breaks that Canada would be sure to offer. Thier R&D and admin work can stay where it is, but the data centres don't matter where they are. Before anyone comments on my use of Commonwealth spelling, I am English, not Canadian.
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Welcome to the real world
Google is acting the way any other company acts. The secrecy here is because to build the kind of facility needed to house this data center takes a lot of real estate and once the word is out, ZOOM, local land owners start demanding prices no one ever dreamed they'd ever see. Talk about greed!
Wal-Mart does the same thing when it targets a new town; the Disney corporation set up an elaborate series of SHELL companies with the specific purpose of buying up a major part of Orlando and doing so without any knowing it was actually Disney doing the buying.
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Not a sin
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What?
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Re: What?
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"Do no evil."
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Google has always done evil
Remember years when Google was swearing it wouldn't show advertisements on its search page? At the time it was saying that, it was building Google's AdSense engine -- you know, the one that puts ads on all their search pages.
Google's public statements were at odds with its internal plans. It is not evil for Google to put ads on its search pages. However, it is evil to deliberately lie about it though. It is especially evil since Google stood to make no gain by telling the lie. They just couldn't help themselves.
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Evil? Use your heads, people.
What's evil about that?
A company provides jobs, and produces something needed by the people - otherwise it wouldn't be paid. So even with zero taxes paid the company is beneficial to the community.
What's evil about that?
The only evil there is the politicans and THEIR greed.
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