For example, if you say "I'm going to research the effect of eating lots of eggs on cholesterol", the government won't care what outcome you find/publish. They funded you because they want the truth to come out about the question you seek to answer. There are some topics where the government "has a dog in the fight" — but much of their research funding is for areas where they are truly agnostic.
Google, on the other hand, only funded research related to their business. So they had an agenda, and all the parties knew it.
I'm not saying they shouldn't have been able to fund this, or that this is any worse than other industry-funded research. Just that it seems some professors did not make the relevant disclosures, and there was a pretty strong incentive for professors not to bite the hand that feeds them.
Are you implying that government funds research when the topic isn't something they care about, or that Google only likes positive results?
Instead of accepting that anyone is an angel or devil, we should approach all results with a critical eye and push for reproducibility.
It's pretty simple. To equate the two, you'd have to say the USG only funds research that increases the size and scope of USG.
Well, I mean there is that whole thing about how federal funding cannot go to gun violence research. So there are absolutely types of research that the government not just passively, but actively attempts to prevent.
I'm not saying that Google is being a good guy here, but I also don't think you can so easily make the argument that the (US) government is any better.
Also, Google is largely funding CS research -- this isn't the kind of thing where there's a double blind study going on. It's usually work on a new algorithm or protocol or architecture or ... -- things that are constructive engineering tasks that can be replicated by others when the researchers' papers are published.
I think that's a somewhat idealistic view. From my reading (which may be out of date, the book was published in 1999), even the basic research funding from governments often has a technological goal in mind, and many of the savvier grant applicants know what that goal is.
This isn't true at all for NSF and NIH grants, FWIW (and "I'm going to research the effect of eating lots of eggs on cholesterol" is not at all the level of specificity of proposals, which is part of this).
It's cause for criticism about how they approve grants (null results are science, too), but it's also partly a natural result of having limited money and many many requests for it.
If you open a donut shop with it, you're probably commuting an act of fraud.
If you absolutely have to change the budget (does happen), you better have permission.
Also, Google grants, oddly, are actually less intellectually restrictive than NSF grants. Sure, neither type of grant places any restriction, but there is actually more of a chilling effect of the NSF process than the Google one. The process Google uses for giving out grants is if there is a senior engineer or two who like your proposal, you get some funds (I'm simplifying a bit, but it's actually not much more complex than that). The NSF, on the other hand, is much more likely to consider things that I think most folks would agree shouldn't be considered, such as the political views of senior government officials.
I don't deny that Google has engineers more interested in certain problems than others, but the work that gets funded results in open research papers, so people are free to look at the work even if they don't work at Google. And that's better than Google just hiring the researchers -- as they and many other companies do -- and keeping the work for themselves.
I am less concerned about waterboarding in Guantanamo, which represents a miniscule proportion of the Federal budget, than social security which brings help to tens of millions. And anyway, Guantanamo is in Cuba (not even US soil) and those journalists ought not to have been talking to those prison guards.
> The irony of discussing disclosures and transparency with the “Campaign for Accountability” is that this group consistently refuses to name its corporate funders. And those backers won’t ‘fess up either. The one funder the world does know about is Oracle, which is running a well-documented lobbying campaign against us. In its own name and through proxies, Oracle has funded many hundreds of articles, research papers, symposia and reports.
But what Google does is as far as any sane donator/sponsor would go. We can't really expect them to keep sponsoring more doughnut shops after they find out their money is not being put into good use.
Except that this is very, very normal in almost all research that requires funding. Talk to faculty members in engineering departments, and they'll tell you they often spend most of their professional time grant writing.
Saying this has a chilling effect is like saying a store requiring money in exchange for goods has a chilling effect because it means the purchaser is constantly in need of earning money to eat.
If they give someone money to support research without specific goals, playing nice is implied.
Unprofessional conduct (blowing money on donuts) is reasonably expected to not attract more funds.
But when does undesirable conduct come into play? Would they fund a guy who discovered that YouTube improves high school academic performance by 48%? Would they fund a guy who finds that YouTube slows child cognitive development?
You don't know, because the company's decision making is unknown. But a clever professor who needs grants could probably make a good guess. Even if Google (or any other company) doesn't act that way or has no desire to influence research, the perception of bias still exists, and that undermines science.
My local library is prohibited from accepting many kinds of gifts as a government entity. So the library board setup a "Friends of the Library" non-profit with its own board that can accept and distribute cash or other gifts, subject to reporting requirements. You need a similar concept where you give up control.
They key thing here is that perception is more important than reality. You need to work to build and maintain trust.
A direct quid pro quo / payment for services rendered is more honest than this model which is Google buying the professor vs. buying specific research. That's a serious ethical issue.
Corporate research sponsors generally bend over backwards to avoid paying overhead, which is irksome, but it is what it is.
Why is it "irksome"? Pretty much every administrator treats grants as revenue (i.e., department X brought in Y grant dollars last year). I wouldn't want to give someone a grant if half of it goes to fund the university's operations.
All of those support research, and none of them is a direct cost.
Companies just build those kinds of costs into what they charge. Universities don't, and then get screwed because people try to wiggle their way out of paying it. They're trying to get something at a discount, and then they're often rather sanctimonious about it.
At my university, by most figures, the indirect rate isn't even enough to cover the actual cost of research. It's just closer. What the company is asking is for the good people of $State to pick up the tab for the R&D they can't be bothered to do themselves.
And Google is full of academics, funding academics, and being very careful about making clear these things are "gifts". They know full well how the system works.
At a glance, this seems like the funds are no-strings-attached. But when you think for a minute, you realize it's the exact opposite.
Google is saying that if they don't like what you do with the money, they won't give you any more — but if they do like what you do with it then you might get more. This incentivizes the professor to use the money to do things that Google would like, which is the opposite of no-strings-attached.
There technically are no strings attached to this money, but the possibility of future payments (which ranged from $5k to $400k) is a pretty big enticement.