HIDDEN INFLUENCE Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign
HIDDEN INFLUENCE Paying Professors: Inside Google’s
Academic Influence Campaign
Company paid $5,000 to $400,000 for research supporting
business practices that face regulatory scrutiny; a ‘wish list’ of topics.
By Brody Mullins and Jack Nicas
Google operates a little-known program to harness the
brain power of university researchers to help sway opinion and public policy,
cultivating financial relationships with professors at campuses from Harvard
University to the University of California, Berkeley.
Over the past decade, Google has helped finance hundreds
of research papers to defend against regulatory challenges of its market
dominance, paying $5,000 to $400,000 for the work, The Wall Street Journal
found.
Some researchers share their papers before publication
and let Google give suggestions, according to thousands of pages of emails obtained
by the Journal in public-records requests of more than a dozen university
professors. The professors don’t always reveal Google’s backing in their
research, and few disclosed the financial ties in subsequent articles on the
same or similar topics, the Journal found.
University of Illinois law professor Paul Heald pitched
an idea on copyrights he thought would be useful to Google, and he received
$18,830 to fund the work. The paper, published in 2012, didn’t mention his
sponsor. “Oh, wow. No, I didn’t. That’s really bad,” he said in an interview.
“That’s purely oversight.”
The money didn’t influence his work, Mr. Heald said, and
Google issued no conditions: “They said, ‘If you take this $20,000 and open up
a doughnut shop with it—we’ll never give you any more money—but that’s fine.’”
In some years, Google officials in Washington compiled
wish lists of academic papers that included working titles, abstracts and
budgets for each proposed paper—then they searched for willing authors,
according to a former employee and a former Google lobbyist.
Google promotes the research papers to government
officials, and sometimes pays travel expenses for professors to meet with
congressional aides and administration officials, according to the former
lobbyist. The research has been used, for instance, to deflect antitrust
accusations against Google by the Federal Trade Commission in 2012, according
to a letter Google attorneys sent to the FTC chairman and viewed by the
Journal.
Last month, European regulators issued a $2.71 billion
fine against Google for unfairly favoring its services over rivals’ in its
search results. Google has denied the charge.
The funding of favorable campus research to support
Google’s Washington, D.C.-based lobbying operation is part of a
behind-the-scenes push in Silicon Valley to influence decision makers. The
operation is an example of how lobbying has escaped the confines of
Washington’s regulated environment and is increasingly difficult to spot.
“Ever since Google was born out of Stanford’s Computer
Science department, we’ve maintained strong relations with universities and
research institutes, and have always valued their independence and integrity,”
the company said. “We’re happy to support academic researchers across computer
science and policy topics, including copyright, free expression and
surveillance, and to help amplify voices that support the principles of an open
internet.”
Google receives nearly $80 billion a year in ad sales
drawn mostly from seven products that each attract more than a billion global
users a month, including Gmail, YouTube and Google maps. Its search engine
handles more than 90% of online searches globally, according to StatCounter;
its Android software will run roughly 1.3 billion of the 1.5 billion
smartphones expected to be sold this year, according to Strategy Analytics.
Through its various enterprises, Google collects
information that reaches deep into daily life—recording everything from users’
search history to whom they know to where they are—consumer profiles so rich
that not even Google knows their full potential.
Google has paid professors whose papers, for instance,
declared that the collection of consumer data was a fair exchange for its free
services; that the company didn’t use its market dominance to improperly steer
users to Google’s commercial sites or its advertisers; and that it hasn’t
unfairly quashed competitors. Several papers argued that Google’s search engine
should be allowed to link to books and other intellectual property that authors
and publishers say should be paid for—a group that includes News Corp, which
owns the Journal. News Corp formally complained to European regulators about
Google’s handling of news articles in search results.
Google has funded roughly 100 academic papers on
public-policy matters since 2009, according to a Journal analysis of data
compiled by the Campaign for Accountability, an advocacy group that has
campaigned against Google and receives funds from Google’s rivals, including
Oracle Corp. Most mentioned Google’s funding.
Another 100 or so research papers were written by authors
with financing by think tanks or university research centers funded by Google
and other tech firms, according to the data. Most of those papers didn’t
disclose the financial support by the companies, the Campaign for
Accountability data show.
Google said in some of its funding letters that it would
“appreciate receiving attribution or acknowledgment of our award in applicable
university publications.” There are no professional standards on such
disclosures in the research papers, which are mostly published in law journals
at the universities.
Money spent on the research measures in the low millions
of dollars—according to the former employee and former lobbyist—a relatively
small expense for the search-and-advertising giant. Some in academia say
professors pay too high a price. Such corporate funding runs the risk of
creating the impression “that academics are lobbyists rather than scholars,”
Robin Feldman, of the University of California Hastings College of the Law,
said in a Harvard University law journal article she co-wrote last year.
Ms. Feldman and other critics of the funding say even
disclosing money received from a company that has benefited from the research
can give the appearance of a conflict of interest and undermine academic
credibility.
“Yeah, the money is good but it does get in the way of
objective academic research,” said Daniel Crane, a University of Michigan law
professor. He said he turned down Google’s offers to fund his research that
opposed antitrust regulation of internet search engines. “If I am reading an
academic paper, and they disclose an interest with a party with an interest in
the outcome,” he said, “you take [the research] with a grain of salt.”
Paying for favorable academic research has long been a
tool of influence by U.S. corporations in food, drug and oil industries.
Scandals involving conflicts of interest in medical research have spurred many
medical schools, scientific researchers and journals to require disclosure of
corporate funding and to prohibit corporate sponsors from meddling with
findings.
The tech industry now includes the world’s top five
companies by market value: Apple Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc., Microsoft
Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc.
Several of the companies also are active in funding
academic research. Microsoft has paid Harvard business professor Ben Edelman,
the author of papers saying Google abuses its market dominance. Chip maker
Qualcomm Inc. funded papers supporting its side of a fight against Google over
patents. And telecommunication giants Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T
Inc. have funded various papers against Google. The companies either declined
to comment or didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Google’s strategic recruitment of like-minded professors
is one of the tech industry’s most sophisticated programs, and includes funding
of conferences and research by trade groups, think tanks and consulting firms,
according to documents and interviews with academics and lobbyists.
Digital diary
Google collects in-depth data from more than a billion
people, and it uses the information to personalize everything from search
results to YouTube recommendations to online ads. The company’s control of
consumer data on such a mass scale has raised antitrust questions.
Early last year, Daniel Sokol, a University of Florida
law professor, published an academic paper arguing that Google’s use of the
data was legal. “There is no cause for concern in this arena,” he wrote. The
paper also noted that no companies funded the research.
“If they did,” Mr. Sokol said in a footnote of the paper,
he and his co-author “would be sipping Mai Tais with our respective friends and
families on a beach in Hawaii based on the proceeds of such a sponsorship. We
are not.”
Everything Google Knows About You
The search engine giant keeps a detailed history of every
term you’ve searched, website you’ve visited and video you’ve watched with its
services. To see what data it has on you, visit myactivity.google.com
Mr. Sokol, though, had extensive financial ties to
Google, according to his emails obtained by the Journal. He was a part-time
attorney at the Silicon Valley law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati,
which has Google as a client. The 2016 paper’s co-author was also a partner at
the law firm, which didn’t respond to requests for comment.
From at least as early as 2013, Mr. Sokol also has
coordinated with Google officials to ensure online symposiums had a pro-Google
bent.
In March 2013, Mr. Sokol helped Paul Shaw, a Google
public-policy official, persuade law professors to write papers for an online
symposium on patents. Mr. Shaw sent Mr. Sokol a list of a dozen law professors
along with specific topics for their papers. None was paid to participate. Mr.
Shaw deferred comment to a company spokesman.
After the conference, Mr. Sokol submitted a $5,000
invoice to Google.
In September 2013, Mr. Sokol worked with Rob Mahini, a
senior Google lawyer, to plan an online conference on a separate patent issue.
Mr. Mahini identified professors to participate, and he asked Mr. Sokol to
invite them.
After running into difficulty persuading professors to
write papers for the conference, Mr. Sokol asked Mr. Mahini if Google could
provide “some ‘encouragement’ to them to participate,” according to the emails.
Mr. Sokol declined to explain what he meant. Google said it didn’t pay
professors to participate. Mr. Mahini didn’t respond to requests for comment.
When the symposium ended, a Google assistant emailed Mr.
Sokol about his bill. Mr. Sokol replied: “$5,000, like last time.”
Asked for comment, Mr. Sokol wrote in an email: “For the
symposia that I organized, I should have disclosed the sponsorship for such
organization and have now done so. I disclose any financial support for the
articles that I write.”
Patent pending
Google and companies that make smartphones backed by its
Android software have for years fought allegations of patent infringements by
Oracle, Apple and Microsoft. The legal dispute has drawn academic cover on both
sides.
The Rise and Fall of a K Street Renegade
Google sought help from Jorge Contreras, a University of
Utah law professor who has also argued for a looser interpretation of U.S.
patent laws.
Since 2013, Mr. Contreras has written numerous papers on
patents. Google helped fund two of those papers, which each disclosed the
financial support. The other papers didn’t mention his relationship with
Google.
Google funded a Washington, D.C., symposium in June 2015,
organized by Mr. Contreras, that showcased how Google and other companies had
pledged not to enforce some of their patents, allowing others to use their
technology.
Around that time, Mr. Contreras forwarded his research
paper on the topic to Google policy officials and lawyers: “I would also
welcome your feedback and comments,” he wrote in the email.
“It’s in really great shape!” a Google lawyer responded.
“Would be good to discuss a couple of things briefly…that are somewhat
related.” They set up a phone appointment, according to the email exchange.
Mr. Contreras said in an interview that he sent the paper
as a courtesy because Google sponsored the conference. He said it was common
among academics to ask for feedback on papers, including from officials at
companies the papers discuss. “They’re experts and in the trenches, and I’m
writing about what these people do,” he said. “So, it’s good to get feedback.”
A month before the symposium, Google hosted a private
patent-law briefing at the Washington law office of Wilson Sonsini for several
dozen influential public-policy advocates it hoped to win over. Google paid
travel expenses for Mr. Contreras to speak about how companies share their
intellectual property.
Mr. Contreras said Google doesn’t pay professors to
change their positions; it simply funds research that supports the company.
“I don’t think there’s any dishonesty here,” he said,
“but they pick the right people who they know are going to say the right
thing.”
Trusted allies
In 2010, Google hired Deven Desai, then a researcher in
law and technology at Princeton University, to find academics to write research
papers helpful to the company.
Over the next two years, Mr. Desai said, he spent more
than $2 million of Google’s money on conferences and research papers that paid
authors $20,000 to $150,000.
In September 2012, the FTC was nearing a decision on
whether to charge Google with antitrust violations, including its practice of
favoring its shopping and travel services in search results. Google’s law firm,
Wilson Sonsini, sent the FTC chairman an 8-page letter in the company’s defense
and attached Google-funded research papers supporting its arguments.
Mr. Desai, now a law professor at Georgia Institute of
Technology after leaving Google in 2012, said part of his job was to compile a
list of “all the major policy academics in intellectual property so Google
lobbyists could know who to follow and potentially target for papers.”
He said Google was careful to say the checks came with no
requirements: “It was a gift. Recipients can do what they want.”
Among the largest were $400,000 gifts that in 2010 went
to several researchers investigating ways to improve users’ online privacy.
Google and other tech companies collect personal
information, including data some users would rather not share. The firms usually
give notice on a privacy policies page about what is collected, and they often
ask for users’ consent to keep the information.
Some privacy advocates say the policies are long and
confusing, and few people read them. The advocates seek instead rules limiting
the use of personal data.
Ryan Calo, then a research fellow at Stanford University,
received one of the $400,000 awards in 2010, though he didn’t disclose the
funding in one of the two papers he later published on privacy protection.
That paper suggested finding better ways to alert
consumers about exposing their personal data “before we give in to calls to
abandon notice as a regulatory strategy.”
He said in an interview that the Google money was paid to
Stanford, not to him.
Nonetheless, he said, he should have disclosed the financial
support in both papers.
After publication, Mr. Calo kept in touch with Google and
shared his papers before publication, emails show.
“I’ll be following up with a draft of that paper I
mentioned on how cyberlaw is changing, and look forward to any examples or
thoughts,” Mr. Calo wrote on Dec. 20, 2013, to Google officials about an idea
he had on artificial intelligence, robotics and the law.
Betsy Masiello, a Google official at the time, was copied
on the email and responded: “Also let me know if you have a draft on
surveillance! =)”
Later, after seeing Mr. Calo’s research on government
surveillance, Dorothy Chou, a Google spokeswoman at the time, tried
unsuccessfully to arrange for Mr. Calo to discuss his conclusions on National
Public Radio.
“I’m really hoping NPR reaches out so you can get on air
to make those points,” she wrote on Jan. 21, 2014. A few days later, she wrote:
“We have another producer asking to chat about government surveillance, and I
wanted to let you know that we pointed her your way.”
Ms. Chou declined to comment, and Ms. Masiello didn’t
respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Calo, who is now a professor at the University of
Washington, said it was common practice to discuss research with companies
involved to ensure accuracy: “If you want to have impact as a scholar, you
absolutely need to solicit input from the very entities you’re talking about.”
Google officials, he said, “identify work that resonates
with a position they have already, and then they amplify that work.”
Comments
Post a Comment