No CEO ever likes to testify before Congress, but Google's CEOs, past (Eric Schmidt) and present (founder Larry Page), are going so far out of their way to avoid testifying in Congress that they are begging for a subpoena.
Google's grand experiment in photographing the world's places for Google Maps has taken its "street view" cameras off-road with new hi-tech tricycles equipped with 360 degree view cameras to photograph the back roads, parks, college paths and inner sanctums of our world. The engineer's latest design raises the question: What will Google be capturing on its back-road tour that people don't want seen?
California's own Google and Verizon released a new plan for how the Internet should operate, if they got to rule the world. We'd keep Net Neutrality for the wired Internet, at least for consumers not corporations, but they could set up fast lanes and slow lanes for the wireless Internet. Wireless is of course the future of the Internet, but then again that is exactly the point.
Eliminating Net Neutrality could destroy independent blogs like Calitics that can't afford to pay for our readers to reach us on faster connections.
The media has trashed their evil deal and over 300,000 people have signed an open letter demanding Google drop this proposal.
It's a giant corporate power-grab and Google who claims to "do no evil" is doing exactly that with this evil plan. That's why MoveOn, the PCCC (where I work), CREDO Action, Color of Change and Free Press are holding a rally at noon tomorrow in front of Google headquarters. The event is at the corner of Amphitheatre Parkway and Charleston Road in Mountain View. Click here to RSVP.
For people in the San Francisco area, there will be a bus leaving from the San Francisco Opera House at 301 Van Ness at 11 a.m. You have to RSVP to get on the bus, as seats are limited.
This deal can be stopped, but only if President Obama and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski understand just how angry we are at the prospect of our rights being trampled online by Google and other corporate giants. So, please join us, or if you don't live in the Bay Area, pass along the info to your friends.
I have a story today that comes from my predilection to "self-syndicate", meaning that I post my stories far and wide, in the same way a newspaper columnist is syndicated nationally-or beyond.
After I post, I know others will also post my stories to their sites, a topic that was itself the subject of a recent conversation.
To keep track of it all, I use the Google...but I recently wondered if that's actually the most effective tool for the job-or not-so as an experiment I recently challenged several search engines to go out and seek the same search term.
We find out today...and the results are, indeed, interesting.
If you tool around the Internets as much as I do, you may have noticed this. The No on 8 campaign has been using Barack Obama's logo and image in Web ads that say "Obama Calls Prop. 8 Divisive And Discriminatory". Clicking on the ad will take you to this page, at the No On Prop. 8 site, with a couple quotes from Sen. Obama about the measure.
The Obama campaign would not let this happen on its own. God for them for allowing the No on 8 campaign to associate with his remarks. Obama has shown a willingness to lend himself to the efforts of downticket races - he's cut an ad for Oregon US Senate candidate Jeff Merkley - though I doubt we'll see much more than this Web advertising from him on Prop. 8.
Here are a couple other things I think need to happen to help the Prop. 8 cause. First, Google needs to stop running ads that violate their own policies. Google has a very specific standard for those groups that use their architecture to advertise, which includes banning ads that advocate against a "protected class" like the LGBT community. Yet they allow Yes on 8 to use Google ads. I know Google as a company is on the right side of this debate, but they can either stand behind their stated policy or not.
The other thing that the no side might want to consider is putting an actual face on who would be discriminated against with this measure. I know this has been a source of controversy that's simmered under the surface, but today Jonathan Rauch brings it up in the LA Times.
The need to walk that tightrope helps explain why the actual subjects of next month's initiative, gay couples, were "inned" by the "No on 8" campaign's ads. (Full disclosure: I am a "No on 8" donor.) One ad, for example, features a gray-haired straight couple. "Our gay daughter and thousands of our fellow Californians will lose the right to marry," says mother Julia Thoron.
A subsequent ad, all text with voice-over narration, mentions marriage only once ("Regardless of how you feel about marriage, it's wrong to treat people differently under the law") and never uses the phrase "gay marriage" or even the word "gay." Just as oblique was a spot, released Wednesday, in which state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell reassures viewers that "Prop. 8 has nothing to do with schools or kids. Our schools aren't required to teach anything about marriage." A casual viewer could have come away from these ads puzzled as to exactly what right thousands of Californians might be about to lose.
Asked about the absence of gay couples, a senior "No on 8" official told KPIX-TV in San Francisco that "from all the knowledge that we have and research that we have, [those] are not the best images to move people." Children, also, were missing; showing kids with same-sex parents could too easily backfire [...]
Whatever the tactical considerations, the absence of gay couples and gay marriages from California's gay-marriage debate makes for an oddly hollow discussion. It leaves voters of good conscience to conjure in their own minds the ads that are not being aired: Ads that show how gay marriage directly affects the couples and communities that need it most.
You can show me all the data you want; "hollow" is the best word for what's happening. Neither side is talking about the actual proposition in their messaging. I expect that from the Yes side, to hide their serial homophobia and focus on made-up protections of imagined rights that would be encroached upon. But when a self-described squish like Kevin Drum terms No on 8's ads "bland and generic," something is wrong. Without a clear indication, as done in the Ellen DeGeneres PSA, of who would be harmed by this measure and why, there's this subconscious message of shame about the rights that this campaign is trying to defend.
On a completely unrelated note, this is a great post from a minister discussing what the Bible actually says about marriage.
One of the biggest ways you can impact this election is to disseminate information to your circle of friends. A couple organizations have stepped up in a big way to make that process smooth and easy.
Google noticed that millions of people were searching through their site for voting information - where their polling place is, when the last day for early voting is, etc. Google created this great tool as a one-stop shop to answer all of those questions.
It's hard to believe that in 2008, information so important to U.S. citizens and the democratic process isn't well organized on the web. To solve this problem, we've released our US Voter Info site, an effort to simplify and centralize voting locations and registration information.
Are you registered to vote? What's the best way to obtain an absentee ballot? When people visit the site, answers to these questions appear. And anyone with a website can provide the same information. The US Voter Info gadget places a simple search box that expands to show a full set of voter information when someone enters an address.
We are also offering a simpler way to find out where to vote. By entering a home address, citizens across the country will be able to find their polling place for election day.
The tool is super-easy and effective. Tell your friends.
Another incredible tool comes from our friends at CREDO mobile. It's called TXT Out The Vote, and it enabled you to send targeted text messages in California opposing Prop. 4 (parental notification for abortion) and Prop. 8 (eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry). The messages, which you can send to any friend or family member with a cell phone, will be delivered on Election Day. This kind of "personal phone banking" is one of the best ways to get out the vote. Check it out at TXT Out The Vote. Standard text messaging rates apply.
Welcome to a probably not-so-regular feature, offering the latest news on the ballot propositions. The Calitics Editorial Board will be out with their endorsements on these initiatives sometime next week.
There is far more economic opportunity in fighting global warming than economic risk....We shouldn't let the budget crisis hold back good things for the future. 20 years from now you can't look back and say "well they had a budget crisis so we didn't do it." Just because we had a problem with the budget does not mean that people should vote "no" on high speed rail. Our rail system in America is so old, we're driving the same speed as 100 years ago, the same system as 100 years ago. We should modernize, we should do what other countries do...We should start in this state, we should show leadership.
• Prop. 2: You can see it by clicking on the ad on the side, but, you know, Piggy Wonder deserves some main-page love. Joe Trippi is apparently involved in the Prop. 2 campaign, which would help stop animal cruelty; I got an email from him promoting this video.
• Prop. 5: The LA Times has a series of profiles on all the propositions, and here's their edition on Prop. 5, which would finally increase treatment for nonviolent offenders like drug users instead of warehousing them at our overstuffed prisons. Opponents are smearing this by saying its true intent is to legalize drugs, but the failed Drug War is the great unmentionable sinkhole in state and national budgets, and a smart policy emphasizing rehabilitation is desperately needed, especially in California. The No on 5 people must have better spinmeisters, however, as most of the newspapers in the state have come out against the measure. Right, because the policymakers have done such a stellar job in sentencing law, we should just leave it to them.
• Prop. 8: An update on those million yard signs that were "in route" from China to the Yes on 8 campaign: they're still not here.
It seems that the signs, some of them outsourced overseas, didn't all arrive in time for the September event. And many still haven't reached supporters of the measure that would amend the state Constitution to ban gay marriage.
"It takes longer to get a million than we thought," said Sonja Eddings Brown, deputy communications director for the Protect Marriage coalition [...]
Brown tried to spin the production glitch as a positive thing for the campaign -- a sign, so to speak, of the overwhelming demand for lawn signs by voters who wanted to participate in "the most unprecedented and largest grass-roots effort ever attempted in California."
Oh that's just a FAIL.
Meanwhile, when the most reactionary editorial board in the state, the Orange County Register, comes out against your proposition, you know you're having a tough time selling it. As for the right-wing boycott of Google for opposing Prop. 8, the website orchestrating it advises its supporters to follow the fate of the proposition - on Google News.
I think I'm going to miss this initiative, it's been hilarious so far.
Google is typically viewed as a good corporate citizen. They're a major employer in our state and they provide excellent benefits and one of the best work environments on the planet.
As an Internet company, Google is an active participant in policy debates surrounding information access, technology and energy. Because our company has a great diversity of people and opinions -- Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, all religions and no religion, straight and gay -- we do not generally take a position on issues outside of our field, especially not social issues. So when Proposition 8 appeared on the California ballot, it was an unlikely question for Google to take an official company position on.
However, while there are many objections to this proposition -- further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text -- it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 -- we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love.
Posted by Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology
I wonder if this now means that there will be a Google boycott among members of the LDS church.
On February 4, 2008! The People of the United States, can show the world just how "United We Are" by Honking There Horns at the same time all over the Country. The Times is set as followed. East standard time (EST) at 12:00 Noon, Central Standard time (CST) at 11:00am, Mountain Standard Time (MST) at 10:00am, Pacific Standard Time (PST) at 9:00am. In Support of Barack Obama for President.
We Can Change!
Change has started every since this young man has entered into politics. No matter who you are or what your beliefs may be you still can feel the change and the direction our country is taking.
Barack Obama is the best Representative for the land we call America. This great nation needs an impartial person who can see the issues our great nation faces without division. This has been the downfall of our country from Day one. We need someone who stands for the equality of all people. Barack Obama brings us the hope that one day we can achieve peace and equality in our great nation, The United States Of America and lead the world by setting the example of being united.
Barack Obama is trying to unite these broken United States. There is only one candidate in the race for the presidency, who was made for uniting America. This is Barack Obama! Listening to his inspirational speeches and reading about his multi-cultured upbringing makes me feel any person raised with such social and cultural differences so close to home would make a proper president for this melting pot we call the United States Of America. He stands for Unity and Equality for all, From Sea to Shining Sea. So it only seems fit for all of us in this great nation who want the same to pull together and share our gratitude for the work and risks he faces daily during his campaign for presidency.
Starting with Hillary Clinton back in February, several presidential candidates so far this year have visited Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA for a one-on-one chat (Clinton) or a full-fledged townhall meeting (McCain, Richardson and Edwards) in front of 1,000 or so Google employees. While we always hear about Google executives being a great source of Silicon Valley cash for the candidates, these forums are more akin to, as Carla Marinucci puts it,
the New Hampshire pancake breakfast, the Iowa school auditorium, [or] the South Carolina church hall.
Yes, retail politics IS happening right here in California and, thanks to Google's YouTube channel (umm, yeah they have one) the forums are available for all of us to see. They give us a rare glimpse of the candidates off script (rare for those of us not in N.H. or Iowa or permanently glued to CSPAN that is.) And while the candidates do their best to stick to the basic elements of their stump speeches, it's the unexpected little moments that are most interesting, such as Hillary Clinton's sense of humor, the warm war hero's welcome John McCain receives or the stumbles of Richardson (calling on Google to go solar when they already have) and Edwards (it was in this forum that he mistakenly claimed to have read the Iraq NIE.) And yes the candidates even talk California such as when Hillary repeated her praise for California's having kept electricity usage steady over the past two decades while nationwide it's increased 50%.
Want to get a close-up and personal look at the candidates, check out the videos over the flip:
I'm a bit out of reach these days, but I wanted to point out Sasha's excellent work at Left in SF on the San Francisco municipal wireless debate. Check out all of his posts here and his wrapup of the debate here. There's going to be a hearing on the program this afternoon, and I've heard Sasha will be involved. I know Google and Earthlink are fighting to preserve the sweetheart deal, but we need to do what's best for The City, and whether that's municipal wifi or GoogleFi, the residents of SF should come first. Let's just make sure we get this right.
So, if you're in SF, thank Sasha for doing such a great job for us on this issue.
Google announced today that it has implemented new algorithms to stop the practice of "Googlebombing" -- the practice of manipulating links to move certain webpages toward the top of search results. This has been a tactic of the Netroots in the past, and recently Chris Bowers called for a "Googlebomb" to make negative stories about John McCain appear higher in Google search results.
