[liberationtech] Facebook and Google Finance Nonprofits to Support Anti-Consumer-Privacy Laws

[Yosem Companys]

Few companies have more riding on proposed privacy legislation than
Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. To try to steer the bill
their way, the giant advertising technology companies spend millions
of dollars to ... support highly influential think tanks and public
interest groups that are helping shape the privacy debate, ostensibly
as independent observers.

Bloomberg Law examined seven prominent nonprofit think tanks that work
on privacy issues that received a total of $1.5 million over a
18-month period ending Dec. 31, 2018. The groups included such
organizations as the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Future
of Privacy Forum, and the Brookings Institution. The actual total is
undoubtedly much higher—exact totals for contributions were difficult
to pin down.

The tech giants have “funded scores of nonprofits, including consumer
and privacy groups, and academics,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive
director at the Center for Digital Democracy, a public interest group
that does not accept donations from Google or Facebook.

Further, he says, their influence is strong. The companies have
“opposed federal privacy laws and worked to weaken existing
safeguards,” Chester said. Accepting donations from these
“privacy-killing companies enable them to influence decisions by
nonprofits, even subtly,” he said.

Such organizations—which bristle at the notion that donations may
affect their views—often have great sway over legislators,
journalists, and the public due largely to their collective expertise
on complex issues and inside knowledge of the legislative process. But
they also often push positions that favor the goals of Google and
Facebook, critics say.

[...]

Google and Facebook want a federal privacy law, as long as it doesn’t
disrupt their data collection and advertising empires, critics say.

Executives from both companies have testified that they want Congress
to preempt states because of a potential surge in local laws—often
with more privacy protections than a federal bill will garner.

[...]

The traditional way for companies to get what they want in Washington
is pretty straightforward—hire a lobbyist. Indeed, spending in those
areas by Google and Facebook has rocketed upward over the past decade.

[...]

Organizations like the Center for Democracy and Technology, which
received at least $960,000 from the two companies in 2018, are often
quoted in the media as unbiased third parties and influence how policy
is developed in Washington as such, despite receiving the tech company
funding.

The group supports allowing tech giants to sell user data to third
parties with limited restrictions, a position that is in line with
technology companies that profit handsomely from such sales, but not
so popular with consumers.

The nonprofit organization received $430,000 from Google and $330,000
from Facebook in calendar year 2018, internal numbers voluntarily
disclosed by the organization shows.

The group in fiscal year 2018 also received at least $200,000 from the
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a nonprofit co-run by Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. The digital advertising
giants’ contributions were nearly one-sixth of its reported revenue
for the year.

[...]

The Future of Privacy Forum, another nonprofit, is active in the
federal privacy debate, hosting events that aim to influence lawmakers
to push for a bill that preempts state privacy laws.

[...]

Its board of directors also includes Christopher Wolf, the nonprofit’s
founder and board chairman. Wolf is of counsel to Hogan Lovells’
privacy and information management practice in Washington, D.C. Google
is a client of the firm.

[...]

Future of Privacy Forum has pushed for a federal privacy law that
would avoid conflicts with international data protection regimes,
pre-empt state privacy standards, and create incentives for internal
security and privacy accountability measures. These are positions are
in line with what Facebook and Google want.

[...]

Access Now is an advocacy group fighting “for human rights in the
digital age,” according to its website. The nonprofit aims to
influence “decision makers in the halls of parliaments and corporate
boardrooms, deliver digital security resources to users at risk, and
mobilize global internet users to pressure the powerful.”

Access Now received $100,000 from Google and $108,000 from Facebook in
calendar year 2018... The group has pushed for a federal standard that
would allow businesses to target consumers with online ads with proper
user consent. It has also pushed for increased Federal Trade
Commission privacy enforcement powers, including increased fining
authority. Their recommendations generally track with industry
positions apart from more FTC enforcement powers and fining authority.

[...]

Facebook and Google are also making contributions to Washington, D.C.,
think tanks that host a wide array of Beltway power players that have
focused their work on privacy and data policy—including the Brookings
Institution, The Cato Institute, and the American Enterprise
Institute.

[...]

Brookings has hosted privacy events featuring an array of privacy
advocates, lawmakers, federal enforcers, and international officials.
The privacy advocates, however, are sometimes drawn from the groups
Google and Facebook are backing. In a July 2018 privacy event,
representatives from the Center for Democracy and Technology and the
Internet Association, a Facebook and Google trade group, gave their
thoughts on whether there should be an online privacy law.

[...]

The Cato Institute lists both tech giants among nine corporate sponsors.

[...]

The group, in an Aug. 2 op-ed, defended Facebook and Google’s
advertising practices saying that the companies’ use of targeted
advertising is “nothing new.” Cato in the op-ed pushed back on the
notion that Facebook and Google see users as products, rather they see
tech giants adding value to user data it collects.

Cato has also hosted conferences featuring Facebook and Google
employees. Its 2018 annual surveillance conference invested
“representatives from Facebook, Google, and Mozilla, to discuss issues
of surveillance and privacy”...

AEI has been active in the federal privacy debate. The group’s
in-house experts frequently appear before Congress to testify on
privacy issues and writes op-eds often defending positions favorable
to Facebook and Google. AEI doesn’t want to end advertising business
models and has written articles in support of so-called “surveillance
capitalism,” or the mass collection of consumer data.

[...]

“The landscape of advocacy groups in Washington is complicated, and
large technology companies benefit from this confusion,” Daniel
Stevens, executive director for the Campaign for Accountability, said.

Enforcers and lawmakers “often have no idea that tech companies are
ultimately behind the positions being put forth by innocuous-sounding
advocacy groups.”

The group, which warns of the negative impact of “shadowy nonprofit
groups” on society...

To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel R. Stoller in Washington
at dstoller at bloomberglaw.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Dunbar at
jdunbar at bloomberglaw.com

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/facebook-google-donate-heavily-to-privacy-advocacy-groups