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Privacy Google The Almighty Buck

Stanford Promises Not To Use Google Money For Privacy Research 54

Posted by samzenpus from the bang-for-your-buck dept.
An anonymous reader writes Stanford University has pledged not to use money from Google to fund privacy research at its Center for Internet and Society — a move that critics claim poses a threat to academic freedom. The center has long been generously funded by Google but its privacy research has proved damaging to the search giant as of late. Just two years ago, a researcher at the center helped uncover Google privacy violations that led to the company paying a record $22.5 million fine. In 2011-2012, the center's privacy director helped lead a project to create a "Do Not Track" standard. The effort, not supported by Google, would have made it harder for advertisers to track what people do online, and likely would have cut into Google's ad revenue. Both Stanford and Google say the change in funding was unrelated to the previous research.
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Stanford Promises Not To Use Google Money For Privacy Research More

Stanford Promises Not To Use Google Money For Privacy Research

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  • Hey Google (Score:5, Insightful)

    by joelgrimes ( 130046 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2014 @01:05PM (#47985879)

    If you want us to believe that you take our privacy seriously, you would do the opposite and create an endowment exclusively for privacy research.

    An external audit is much more credible than the internal one.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by halivar ( 535827 )

      If the article is to be believed, this was Stanford's decision, not Google's. It is also plausible that Stanford wishes to avoid the appearance of hypocrisy in taking the devil's money to do the good Lord's work, so to speak.

      • If the article is to be believed, this was Stanford's decision, not Google's.

        Also, the money appears to have been used political activism, as well as research. Why should Google fund activists that work against their own interests? The bottom line is that Google should be able to fund, or not fund, whatever they want. It is their money. Stanford is not entitled to it.

    • Could entity doing the external audit be influenced by the entity that funds them?

      It is a conflict of interest issue if research is being funded by an entity that could be harmed by the research. Do you believe studies funded by the oil Industry?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        Do you believe studies funded by the oil Industry?

        If they publish findings that are extremely bad for the oil industry, then yes, I will believe those.

        If they seem to publish only findings that are favorable to the oil industry, then no. If they are suspiciously silent on certain issues and seem to avoid researching certain topics, then it's not a matter of having studies you don't believe ---- it's a matter of not having studies even undertaken, due to bias.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by halivar ( 535827 )

          If they publish findings that are extremely bad for the oil industry, then yes, I will believe those.

          If they seem to publish only findings that are favorable to the oil industry, then no.

          Thus such studies can only enforce an entrenched opinion, and cannot successfully convey truth. There is therefore every reason for Google not to fund privacy research; people will believe only bad results if they fund it.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mysidia ( 191772 )

            There is therefore every reason for Google not to fund privacy research; people will believe only bad results if they fund it.

            There is an alternative option.... they can provide funding to a transparent foundation / neutral party. The neutral party can then choose what privacy research projects to fund.

            Since Google will have no control over the funding, the researchers won't be beholden to Google; their funds have already been secured, and Google is just a contributor of funding to the neutral party.

            • they can provide funding to a transparent foundation / neutral party.

              There is no such thing as a "transparent foundation / neutral party" once they accept funding from a party with interest in the outcome of the research. That is basic conflict of interest policy.

              Since Google will have no control over the funding,

              Google has control over the funding in that they could cut it off at any time. Going against your main funding source may mean you get no funding next year.

            • I don't get it.

              If the 'neutral party' is concerned by Google's bottom-line, they aren't neutral.

              If they aren't selecting the research direction which is best for Stanford, their opinions shouldn't be imposed.

        • If only bad results are believed how is that academic freedom?

      • Do you believe studies funded by the oil Industry?

        Just as much as the studies funded by those who hate the oil industry.

    • If you want us to believe that you take our privacy seriously, you would do the opposite and create an endowment exclusively for privacy research.

      What I got from the summary was that (a) Google *has* been funding privacy research at Stanford, research which has identified issues with Google products and (b) Stanford has decided to stop taking Google's money in order to avoid an apparent conflict of interest (though it's apparently not a conflict which has been stopping them from being critical of Google).

      So, it doesn't sound like Stanford, at least, would be willing to accept such an endowment, in fact they've more or less had it and just rejected

    • Would you trust cancer research funded by tobacco companies, environmental research financed by oil/coal companies, etc? In the same way, privacy research sponsored by Google automatically falls under a cloud of suspicion, along with the researchers doing so and Google for sponsoring it, should it find that there is no need for privacy intervention. On the other hand, if it finds the opposite, you get "even research funded by Google says people's privacy is being abused". This makes it a lose/lose for both

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by penix1 ( 722987 )

        In short, it is not evil for a donor to say funds can't be used for a study where there doing so would produce a conflict of interest.

        Which completely invalidates the whole concept of peer review. Go ahead... Try and find funding for privacy research amongst the crowd without any interest in the data. Good luck with that. Open peer review of any study is necessary to weed out bias. After all, you would pay for data you have no interest in right?

  • Both Stanford and Google say the change in funding was unrelated to the previous research.

    Well that certainly puts the issue to bed.

    • Both Stanford and Google say the change in funding was unrelated to the previous research.

      Well that certainly puts the issue to bed.

      More proof that both willingly lie, because : money.

  • Hogwash. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 24, 2014 @01:15PM (#47985967)

    https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2014/09/stanford-research-independent

    Money quotes, emphasis mine:
    "Julia Angwin's blog post today is incorrect. Stanford never promised not to use Google money for privacy research. "
    "Julia asked me how we would deal with a situation where someoneÃ(TM)s "work on net neutrality or copyright, for instance, could wind up in the field of privacy." I told Julia: "No area of CIS research is 'barred'. We are free to work on whatever we like, including privacy. That makes things easy." Unfortunately, Julia did not include my statement in the piece."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nazsco ( 695026 )

      sounds like what someone would say to not lose Google's money

      i think we will only know the truth looking at the research output in a couple years...

  • Both Stanford and Google say the change in funding was unrelated to the previous research.

    They can say that as much as they like, but it just is not credible. More evidence that Google has not only gone away from trying to not be evil, but is actually taking steps to become actively evil.

    Like funding research and claiming it is for the benefit of society, but only if the research suits Google ---- therefore, the funding from Google helps reduce funding others might otherwise provide towards researc

  • Standford should use Google money to fund its normal operational stuff, then use the money it normally uses for operations to do privacy research.

  • Lol I was just thinking earlier today how google hacked my browser to install unwanted files (ad cookies) on my computer. I'm pretty sure this is the textbook definition of malware. This is the $22m fine referred to in the summary
  • I'm probably to simple minded but this looks like a gold opportunity for Apple to exclusively fund the "Privacy Research" and specifically note that there are no strings attached other than research on "privacy".

    • Apple would have the same conflict of interest issue in funding research when Apple could be hurt by that research.

  • Stanford says it's an "internal policy" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by diamondmagic ( 877411 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2014 @01:24PM (#47986087) Homepage

    Stanford says it's an "internal policy": https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/... [stanford.edu]

    All donors to the Center--and to Stanford more generally--agree to give their funds as unrestricted gifts, for which there is no contractual agreement and no promised products, results, or deliverables.

    But this makes absolutely no sense. If all money goes into a general fund, there's no distinguishing "whose" money it is, it's Stanford's money.

    • " If all money goes into a general fund, there's no distinguishing "whose" money it is..."

      Sounds to me like an easy accounting exercise.

      So don't put it in a general fund. Make a Restricted Account for privacy research. Then when you do privacy research, just make sure it comes from there and only there. Also make sure none of Google's money gets in there. Standard GAAP should handle that like a snap.

      "Money" sounds "fungible", but it's not. In many ways, "money" = "$ combined with the source and destination

  • Conflict of interest (Score:5, Informative)

    by jklovanc ( 1603149 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2014 @01:28PM (#47986131)

    The summary has an interesting slant that being Google's restriction on the use of their contributions limits academic freedom. The legal filing [zdassets.com] puts it in a different light as the restriction on the use of funding eliminates any possible conflict of interest in the privacy research as the funding can not come from Google who could be hurt by the research. (Look near the bottom of the document)

    • Imagine if Stanford published some privacy-related research, and there was a note at the bottom "This Paper was Partially Funded by a Grant From The Google Foundation", or whatever... there'd be a huge outcry of how tilted and biased the results must be because Google was paying for some or all of it.

  • use Google's $ to fund football/use football funds for (secret).

  • See Grimmelmann's post about the real situation at his blog, The Laboratorium [laboratorium.net].

    I am sorry that I commented based on a reporter’s description of the filing rather than asking to see it myself.

  • For all google's sins, wouldn't the federal government be a bigger offender on this issue? And since stanford is obviously going to still cash those checks what exactly is the point of not taking google's money? I mean... that's like saying "I won't take money from this street thug but I'll take money from the kingpin."... it is absurd. I mean... snowden was not whistle blowing on google.

  • This is the exact reason why public funding needs to be primary source of funding for research organisations. Otherwise, certain "inconvenient" types of research (for donors) gets terminated like this.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Many researchers will now pretend they'd never agree to such conditions etc, but the reality is that:
    1. Targeted grants ("we give you $X to work on Y") are common
    2. Many scientists are not particularly concerned with ethics outside the narrow area of not being a fraudster. As history shows (e.g. Nazi weapons research) scientists will take money from anyone as long as it allows them to research their pet subject, paying little thought to how their discoveries will be used. That's why anyone treating scientis

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