Criticizing Google? You're fired

With a similar formulation - because the employee’s activity “endangers the entire organization” - from the influential Washington-based research fund of the New America Foundation fired scientist Barry Lynn and his entire research team. This group launched the Open Markets project and opposed dominance in the market of large telecoms and technology giants, including Google, writes the New York Times . The story has caused considerable resonance , because lobbying and the influence of Google has already passed all bounds.

Since its foundation in 1999, the New America Foundation has received more than $ 21 million in donations from Google (Alphabet), its chairman, Eric Schmidt (pictured) and his family fund. This money helped establish the New America Foundation as an influential civic and expert force on the left flank, where Google, through it, also gained a certain influence in discussions of topical issues. Eric Schmidt himself led the New America Foundation until 2016, and there are still many who perceive him as a boss.

The fund has more than 200 employees. Until recently, Barry Lynn and his group, the leading Free Markets project of free markets, also received salaries.

The current scandal began with the fact that at the end of June, European antitrust regulators sentenced Google to pay an enormous $ 2.7 billion fine for violating antitrust laws. Literally a few hours after this news appeared on June 27, 2017, Open Markets project staff published an eulogy letter on the official website approving the decision of the European regulator. They soon found out how cruel Google's revenge could be.
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At first, Eric Schmidt orally expressed his dissatisfaction with the group president, said Barry Lynn. As a result, the published Open Markets statement soon disappeared from the site of the New America Foundation, but after a few hours it was brought back. Meanwhile, there was a rumor among employees that Google could stop funding, while others expressed concern that an independent organization was thinking too much about how not to offend its sponsors.

Soon, the President of the New America Foundation, Anne-Marie Slaughter, summoned Barry Lynn to her office and spoke seriously to him. She said that the time had come for the Open Markets and the New America Foundation to separate their paths, so the entire group of ten full-time and freelance Open Markets employees is now allocated from the New America Foundation. In a letter to Lynn, the president said that the decision “is not in any way related to the content of your work,” but is related to the fact that the group’s activities “endanger the entire organization” (imperiling the institution as a whole). The letter was the following text: “We are now in the process of expanding cooperation with Google in some extremely key positions. Just THINK how you jeopardize funding for other [groups]. ”

Naturally, Barry Lynn believes that the group’s president was pushed by former director Eric Schmidt to make this decision: “Google is very aggressively pumping money [in the organization] around Washington and Brussels, and then pulling the strings,” he said. “Now people are afraid of Google.” According to official data, Google in the first half of 2017 spent on lobbying $ 9.5 million - more than almost any other company. She sponsored the activities of 170 non-profit groups across the political spectrum.

The search giant itself rejects its involvement in the dismissal of Lynn’s research team. In fact, the company formally could not be involved. As in the case of self-censorship in the media, some decisions against themselves are made by the “victim” independently, because they are intimidated by the “power”, in the role of which Google is here. Formally, there is no pressure here, and you cannot prove anything in court.

New America Vice President Tyra Mariani (Tyra Mariani) said that the decision to separate the Open Markets program from the fund’s activities was a “joint decision with Barry”, and the organization’s sponsors allegedly have no influence and cannot exert any pressure on the activities of the independent organization. She also added that the Open Markets statement in support of a European antitrust decision against Google temporarily disappeared from the site due to an “unintended internal problem” that has nothing to do with Google and Eric Schmidt.

Shortly after the NY Times article was published , President Slaughter commented that Barry Lynn was fired for "repeated refusal to adhere to New America standards in terms of openness and institutional collegiality."

The organization published an official response to an article in the NY Times, where it called the accusations “absolutely false”, although it could not indicate specific errors or inaccuracies in the article. The organization also said that Mrs. Slaughter would no longer be interviewed by anyone.

Barry Lynn, meanwhile, founded an alternative non-profit organization and launched the Citizens Against Monopoly website.

In fairness, it should be noted that the same activity for lobbying their interests is not only Google, but also Microsoft, and Oracle, and other IT-companies, and the same Microsoft in the past set a specific task to discredit Google .