Update 7:30 pm: The Google video of Al Franken has “Embedding disabled by request”. Sorry but for reasons that are not totally clear, you will need to head over to YouTube to view this video. Are there any conspiracy theorists in the house?
Update 8:17 pm: Apparently, according to @AlanBleiweiss they have also disabled comments.
Update 9/29: Well at least someone had the smarts to reenable embedding. You don’t need to make a story out of the story itself.
Ok. Here’s the question.
How inappropriate is it to have one of the Senators that is overseeing Google’s Antitrust hearing in the senate, shill for the Google Getyourbussiness online program?
Yes, it is a good cause but it certainly raises the specter of a conflict. Bad idea all the way around. It further trivializes an already trivial activity.
Al Franken as a senator was a bad idea all around.
Comment by Frank Reed (14 comments) — September 28, 2011 @ 3:38 pm
@Frank
This level of overt pandering is not unique to Franken. It is pandemic in our political system…. one where the rules are written by and for those with money. This is just one sad example.
Comment by Mike (2500 comments) — September 28, 2011 @ 4:00 pm
[...] apparent “conflict of interest” where Google is concerned. Discovered by Mike Blumenthal Franken did a “commercial” on behalf of Google’s “Get Your Business [...]
Pingback by Sen. Franken Criticizes Google In Hearings, Praises Google In Video — September 28, 2011 @ 4:56 pm
Mike: See if you can get Franken to shill for LocalU you guys can go into Minnesota after the google effort and then teach smb’s how to get the most bang for their web buck!!!!!
ya know…once google gets some of the SMB’s on adwords….they are gonna keep working on those smbs to keep spending MORE!!!!
Comment by earlpearl (784 comments) — September 28, 2011 @ 7:18 pm
@Earl
Great idea!
I like the Google program and while it is free for year one, its free the way the the car mats in your car are free or perhaps more to the point the way the ad supported Kindle is nearly free.
At the end of the day, Google and Intuit hope that a significant % of the businesses keep their websites and keep advertising. Adwords Express is likely covered during the seminar.
None of that is bad. I just think it inappropriate for a Senator, that is “representing the peoples’s interest” and making sure that the consumer is not suffering from actions of an “alleged monopolist”, to be so aggressively marketing the “free” products of that monopolist. It just looks bad.
It does however speak the point I have been making about anti-trust hearings that they are mostly one corporation (or a group of them) looking to score some tactical advantage over another corporation and have little to do with consumer well being.
Comment by Mike (2500 comments) — September 28, 2011 @ 7:26 pm
So, so sad. So sad. How …? I …?
Comment by Jim Jaggers (16 comments) — September 28, 2011 @ 9:30 pm
[...] as Mike Blumenthal pointed out yesterday Franken has both sides of his mouth functioning properly as he was in a video praising Google for [...]
Pingback by The Politics of Google — September 29, 2011 @ 8:55 am
I guess he never really “looked” into the mirror for his reaffirmation
Comment by Jim Ryan (39 comments) — September 30, 2011 @ 11:17 am
This is a joke right?! But lets be honest they just found Plutonium particles 30km from Fukushima and our US based news agencies will not even cover the topic. Time to go camp out on Wall Street; but oh wait the official press line is that they are all just a bunch of losers who do not even know what they are protesting.
The system is so broke it is not even funny. Amazing that Google, the company that will DO NO HARM, is now part of the corporate oligarchy… nice.
Comment by Mark (109 comments) — October 3, 2011 @ 1:04 pm