I want to reveal the following relationships that might affect my readers' judgments about my opinions expressed the blog and in the book, The Googlization of Everything.
1) I have been paid by a major Google competitor, Microsoft, for articles I wrote for MSNBC from 2001 through 2007. I ceased contributing to MSNBC once I signed a contract to write The Googlization of Everything. MSNBC paid me less than $300 per article during that period. I would consider writing for MSNBC again once this book's sales curve has run its coarse. In several of those columns, I took positions on legal and policy issues that Microsoft would and did oppose.
2) I spoke at Microsoft Research in Mountainview, California in 2004. Microsoft paid for my expenses but did not pay me a fee for my talk.
3) I have consumed fewer than 10 free meals on the various campuses of Google and YouTube. I have never spoken at Google nor have received any other compensation with the exception of an ironically presented "Google Book Search" t-shirt that came as a gift from Google's legal team.
4) I spoke at a meeting of the Business Software Alliance (of which many Google competitors are members) in 2002. I was not compensated for that speech, but BSA did pay my expenses.
5) My employer, the University of Virginia, is one of the major partners in the Google Book Search library scanning project.
6) I have several good friends who work for Google. I have not used them as attributed sources in my work but they have influenced the substance and direction of it.
7) I use many of Google's services every day. I have never used any of Google's revenue-sharing advertising services.
8) I have been invited to speak at Yahoo but have declined.
9) Google has paid my publishers less than a dollar for the use of my previous works in Google Book Search.
10) I am part of the class of authors who are party to the pending copyright lawsuit over Google Book Search, but I do not support the lawsuit.
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Comments (4)
I'm a follower. Your work is essential. This is a minor point, but I'm a bit of a nitpicker. There is a typo in paragraph (1). "Coarse" should be "course." Keep up the good work.
Now, that was really funny. Can I mail you a horsehair shirt.
I work in sales and I take money from people whom I disagree with, whom I dislike, whom I don't support, all the time. I accept freebies from wholesalers when I have absolutely no intention of buying their stuff. Taking the money and the freebies has no impact on what causes I support, what prejudices I have and, especially, how I conduct my business.
Instead of telling us about your 10 free meals why don't you share with us the animus that motivated you to write this book? That would be a disclosure.
Well, I am a writer. So declaring conflicts of interest matters. I agree that most of these interactions are trivial. That's sort of the point. I would undermine my credibility if anyone believed that I had profited in any substantial way from my relationships with Google or any of its competitors.
Being in sales is really not comparable.
My motivations for writing the book? The entire book is a disclosure of that. But it's all explicitly laid out in the introduction.
I try to pay attention to the message and not worry about the messenger.
Any reader, trying to be fair, wouldn't worry about your conflicts of interest. We all have conflicts of interest. Pecuniary conflicts are the most obvious and the least pernicious. If one can be bought for a price, then one can be re-bought for a higher price. Problem solved.
Writing, whether editorial or scholarly, stands or falls by the logic and the facts of the matter. The messenger, and his conflicts of interest, should not be of any import. I look forward to your book. Your employment at MSNBC and the University of Virginia will matter not a wit to me nor they should they to any reader.