It's not even about them being unable to resist. Schmidt is on record saying that he feels that their success is a function of/reward for doing what's morally correct and that the company should use its power to push their morality/ideology (and that the market will reward them if they're right or won't if they aren't).
Thinking about this keeps me up at night.
Can you cite a source for this claim by Eric Schmidt?
Is it automatically greed and corruption for Google to disagree and threaten to stop funding?
Obviously we should condemn this behavior, but I can't say I'm surprised. It's good to see such a clear example of Google being unable to resist exerting its power to protect itself from criticism, but I can't help but imagine all of the instances of this that will never see the light of day. The reality is that our world is filled with greed and corruption and that's not going to change any time soon.