Google supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Google endorsed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in a recent blog post by Kent Walker, Google’s senior vice president and general counsel. Google claims the TPP “provides strong copyright protections” and “advances other important Internet policy goals.”

Let’s be clear: the Trans-Pacific Partnership is bad. It includes a restrictive Intellectual Property Chapter that would threaten the rights and interests of Internet users. Consumer and Internet groups like Public Citizen, Public Knowledge, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation oppose the TPP for its IP protections, writing that it would undermine “the public’s right to free expression, and their ability to access knowledge, participate in culture, and innovate online.”

In addition, the TPP would increase the offshoring of call center, service sector, and manufacturing jobs. And it would create an international dispute resolution process that would allow private corporations to challenge domestic laws and regulations.

Google’s support for the bad trade deal comes as the close relationship between the corporate giant and the Obama administration faces criticism. A recent report by The Intercept and the Campaign for Accountability found that between Jan. 2009 and Oct. 2015, Google and its affiliates have had at least 427 meetings at the White House and that “no other public company approaches this degree of intimacy with government.” The White House recently voiced its support for the FCC’s set-top box proceeding, a data give-away for Google. Now Google endorses the administration’s bad trade deal. Quid pro quo.

“Don’t be evil,” indeed.

Links:

Google backs Obama on the trade deal that some tech advocates hate (Recode, June 10, 2016)

Letter to TPP Officials on Intellectual Property Chapter (Public Knowledge, Sept. 24, 2015)

10 Ways the TPP Would Hurt US Working Families (CWA, Jan. 2015)

Is Google too close to the White House? (Speed Matters, Apr. 27, 2016)

New Google Parent Company Drops ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Motto (Time, Oct. 4, 2015)