{"id":11214,"date":"2011-09-28T15:34:07","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T19:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=11214"},"modified":"2011-09-29T12:51:59","modified_gmt":"2011-09-29T16:51:59","slug":"franken-shilling-for-google","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/28\/franken-shilling-for-google\/","title":{"rendered":"Senator Franken Shilling for Google?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update 7:30 pm<\/strong>: The Google video of Al Franken has\u00a0“Embedding disabled by request”. <\/strong>Sorry but for reasons that are not totally clear, you will need to head over to YouTube to view<\/a> this video. Are there any conspiracy theorists in the house?<\/p>\n

Update 8:17 pm<\/strong>: Apparently, according to @AlanBleiweiss<\/a>\u00a0they have also disabled comments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Update 9\/29<\/strong>: Well at least someone had the smarts to reenable embedding. You don’t need to make a story out of the story itself. <\/p>\n

Ok. Here’s the question.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n