{"id":1380,"date":"2017-07-21T05:55:42","date_gmt":"2017-07-21T05:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/google-funded-research-under-fire-company-and-academics-deny-allegations\/"},"modified":"2025-02-19T08:05:21","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T08:05:21","slug":"google-funded-research-under-fire-company-and-academics-deny-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/google-funded-research-under-fire-company-and-academics-deny-allegations","title":{"rendered":"Google-funded research under fire; company and academics deny allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal<\/a> and Campaign for Accountability<\/a> (CfA), a non-profit organization based in the U.S., accused Google of \u201cpaying academics to publish research favorable to the company\u2019s policy and business positions\u2014often without disclosure of the financial relationship<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CfA\u2019s Google Transparency Project<\/a> published a report titled Google Academics Inc.<\/a>, which mentions that between the years 2005 and 2017, Google funded the research published in 330 academic papers. These papers are based on topics such as antitrust, privacy, net neutrality, search neutrality, patents, and copyright, all of which are of importance to Google\u2019s business. According to the report, researchers were paid between $5,000 and $400,00, and 66% of them have not disclosed the funding source. The report, therefore, accuses Google of blurring the lines between academic research and sponsored research for advocacy, since the published literature may have had an influence on policymakers who have been unaware of Google\u2019s role in it. CfA even published a list of researchers<\/a> who received funding from Google either directly or indirectly. \u201cGoogle uses its immense wealth and power to attempt to influence policy makers at every level<\/a>,\u201d said CfA\u2019s executive director Daniel Stevens. He added that, \u201cWhat\u2019s good for Google is not necessarily good for the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the report has met with backlash from Google as well as the academics named in the report. Several of the researchers have denied receiving any money from Google and state that they have been wrongly named and have requested that their names be removed from the list. For instance, Aaron Perzanowski<\/a>, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, one of the researchers in this list thinks that this happened probably because his frequent co-author Jason Schultz had once worked on a Google-funded research project. Most academics agree that any sponsored research should be published with full disclosure. Perzanowski echoed these sentiments saying, \u201cBecause of the sloppy way this [the CfA report] was done, it\u2019s distracting from a really important issue.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Google has denied all allegations of trying to influence policy making decisions through funding research. Leslie Miller, Director of Public Policy at Google, responded to the CfA report in a blog post<\/a>. He called the report \u201chighly misleading,\u201d since the report listed organizations that were never funded by the company. Clearing the air around funding research, Miller states that Google runs several research and policy fellowship programs, but these are governed by proper disclosure of funding sources and academic independence. He mentions that \u201cmany of the academics listed by the Campaign for Accountability have criticized Google and our policy positions heavily on a variety of topics,\u201d which indicates Google\u2019s integrity. Moreover, he points out that CfA \u201cconsistently refuses to name its corporate funders,\u201d and adds that most of the funders of CfA are Google\u2019s competitors such as Oracle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is unclear if there are any clear motives behind the publication of the CfA report, but the researchers whose names have been mentioned in the CfA\u2019s controversial publication are the ones who are most likely to suffer. Perzanowski said, \u201cMaybe they don\u2019t care about the academics. [\u2026] We\u2019re not the target. We\u2019re just sort of the ammunition.<\/a>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

What are your thoughts on this issue? Please share your thoughts and views in the comments section below.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal and Campaign for Accountability (CfA), a non-profit organization based in the U.S., accused Google of \u201cpaying academics to publish research favorable to the company\u2019s policy and business positions\u2014often without disclosure of the financial relationship.\u201d The CfA\u2019s Google Transparency Project published a report titled Google Academics Inc., which mentions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":33313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2408],"tags":[320],"new_categories":[],"new_tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-research-funding"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGoogle-funded research under fire; company and academics deny allegations | Editage Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal and Campaign for Accountability accused Google of \u201cpaying academics to publish research favorable to the company\u2019s policy and business positions\u2014often without disclosure of the financial relationship.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/google-funded-research-under-fire-company-and-academics-deny-allegations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Google-funded research under fire; 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