Google contributes thousands to conservatives

[deadparrot]

SAN FRANCISCO — Under pressure in Washington, Google (GOOG) has given thousands in political contributions to some of the most conservative members of Congress, tempering its image as a bastion of liberal campaign money.

The online search giant's nascent political action committee gave 61% of contributions to Republicans, including Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Orrin Hatch of Utah, according to a USA TODAY analysis.

The $31,000 spent by Google NetPAC, launched three months ago, is relatively small. Still, the company-controlled PAC's giving came as employees gave about 98% of their money to Democrats in last fall's elections.

With Democrats now in control of Congress, Google will likely revamp its political defenses again, sending more to Democrats, says Steve Levin, political reform project director at the non-partisan Center for Governmental Studies.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2007-01-14-google-usat_x.htm

[salin]

1. pre Nov 2006 election results - net neutrality strategy?

that would by my guess.

[citygal]

2. I hope Google returns to its previous stance

The first time I "Googled" *, I laughed and laughed at the results.

[Quantess]

3. Has everyone tried googling "miserable failure" ?

:rofl:

[citygal]

4. Yes!

:headbang:

[physioex]

5. Google was good one time....

Now it basically sucks at everything. Basically I get whatever information from wiki, I trust the information that normal people write than a company like Google.....

[pecwae]

6. I 'Cluster' my searches now. No Googling. nt

[w4rma]

7. Makes sense to me. The company itself needs support from both parties.

Anyway, the employees are what count and they personally support Democrats by a whopping 98%.

[Jim Lane]

8. Where is Yahoo! politically?

I've been more inclined to use Yahoo! Search because it allows greater specificity.

Is either of these companies significantly redder or bluer than the other, either in corporate actions or employee donations?

[Amused Musings]

10. I remember a while ago

Yahoo! provided information to the Chinese government that led to the arrest of a journalist who was apparently snooping around government shenanigans.

[tbyg52]

9. I don't like them for other reasons

Like blocking searches in China and keeping their data pretty much forever. I gotta wean myself off of them. What's another good search engine? Is it back to the aggregators like Dogpile? Is Dogpile still around?

[superconnected]

11. They likely have too. Microsoft had to block all kind of stuff

because their spaces (like myspace) would have people uploading things like porn and the chinese government was demanding Microsoft give them the records to track those people and was arresting the people and sentencing them to death. So Microsoft blocked so much so the people couldn't upload porn, to make sure people didn't get killed by the chinese government. It was a big deal to decide to keep spaces running for the chinese people to interact and not just not let china on spaces(they are microsoft biggest market on their spaces now).

Anyway, that kind of politics in foreign countries is a big deal on why companies block stuff, and save stuff - china demands it - copies of searches. They are given them by microsoft and likely all the other search engines. But microsoft does it for complicated reasons, they don't want to. they do want to remain in china though.

[tbyg52]

12. Should have said "**our* data"

I read somewhere that Google has never knowingly deleted a piece of data since the day they began operations.

Thanks for the info about the "why's" of China. Too bad the companies won't either stay out or refuse to turn over the data <sigh>, but look at all the knuckling under that's going on in this country as well.....

The last six years have been the suckiest I remember in my middle-aged lifetime.

[goforit]

13. Pathetic!!!.....As the wind blows!