And you might be surprised at to what people actually do versus what they say they do-one of the first rules of the Internet. But with the mobile phone you could just ask. The fact of the matter is that in Washington, and I've been part of this for years, people write lots of reports about things. Typical example would be that everybody here has a mobile phone. We're at a point now in technology where we really can change the entire political discourse if we want to.
"One of the things about technology is that technology is fundamentally disruptive," Schmidt explained, "and my experience now, and I've done this for a long time, is that people are always shocked at how real disruption occurs and how much change can occur through empowerment." "What would you do to change that?" Fundamentally disruptive "How would you restructure the system?" the Atlantic's editor continued. Smith Goes to Washington-the voice of digital Main Street talking common sense and virtue to the Beltway.īennet did a good job interviewing Schmidt, but it's hard to imagine him or anyone else asking the same kind of questions of Oracle or Comcast. Only second to Google's huge success as an online provider of applications and content is its ability to present itself as the Silicon Valley equivalent of Mr. Advertisementīut you've got to hand it to the company.
#Politicats live events android#
ĭoes Google seriously imagine that this "community governance" system would not be dominated by the Android maker's new business partner Verizon and its fellow ISPs? And yet the corporation would deny the government even the authority to make formal rules independent of the "incumbencies" that Schmidt finds so disturbing. Parties would be encouraged to use non-governmental dispute resolution processes established by independent, widely-recognized Internet community governance initiatives, and the FCC would be directed to give appropriate deference to decisions or advisory opinions of such groups. The would enforce the consumer protection and nondiscrimination requirements through case-by-case adjudication, but would have no rulemaking authority with respect to those provisions. Indeed, the proposal was composed by two registered lobbyists, Verizon's Tom Tauke and Google's Alan Davidson. Listening to Google's best-known public figure, you would not know that the company has allied itself with an "incumbency" par excellance, Verizon Communications, and the two entities have proposed a set of net neutrality rules that would make any law-writing Capitol Hill lobbyist cheer. The company has spent over $10 million on trying to influence Congress since 2007. "Yes, one of thousands," Schmidt shot back with raised voice, as if this observation somehow made Google less a lobbyist than the others. "But you do have your own lobbying operation," Bennett patiently replied. "Perhaps, but we don't write the laws," insisted Schmidt, who sits on the Presidents Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. "But Google is obviously one of the greatest incumbent corporations in America," Bennett noted. "It's shocking to me to see how hard it is to take on any incumbency," he explained. Schmidt obviously liked the word "shocking," so he used it again. And it's obvious that if the system is organized around incumbencies writing the laws, the incumbencies will benefit from the laws that are written." It's "shocking," Google's CEO continued, "now having spent a fair amount of time inside the system, how the system actually works. "I would say the average American doesn't realize how much the laws are written by lobbyists." A fair amount of time
"I would invert the question," Schmidt replied. "What do you think that Washington doesn't understand?" "We've heard a fair amount at this conference over the last couple of days about what Washington doesn't get about what's going on in the country and what's going on in the world," began Atlantic editor James Bennet in an on-stage Q&A interview with Schmidt.
It was clear from his comments that he and his company remain deeply attached to the search giant's self-image not only as a force for good, but as a bastion of innocence, peering into the political system from the outside. Google CEO Eric Schmidt dropped by the Washington Ideas Forum last week.
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