They've lost 100,000 Viacom videos, Drudge is teasing this with no link: PHONE GIANTS PLOT SECRET RIVAL TO GOOGLE... and apparently the presumably liberal minded company isn't quite as open and democratic as it might want people to believe.
Raleigh | Google Inc. tried to silence North Carolina lawmakers and used heavy-handed lobbying tactics to help mold its own $100 million package of business incentives, according to records released this week.
While the General Assembly worked last year on tax breaks that would save Google millions of dollars on a new data center in Caldwell County, the search engine behemoth demanded that lawmakers never speak its name, according to e-mail records.
"I sort of had to work in the dark," said Sen. Jim Jacumin, R-Caldwell. "That bothered me. They need to respect the laws of the land, even if they're business."
A spokesman for Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., did not return a phone call seeking comment Thursday.
Records show that the company was often agitated by the legislative process. Google executives threatened to walk away from the negotiating table and asked Commerce Secretary Jim Fain to exercise his power over the bill- writing process.
"it will only create about 200 jobs with the $100 million incentive package"
NC needs to just send Google packing.
We've got a similar situation here in Palm Beach. The county has sucked up to Scripps Institute to get a lab here, but IMO its simply not worth the hassle for the number of jobs to be created. Negotiations have dragged on for well over a year, sites changed, etc. There's even been death threats to some of the lawyers involved because of the real estate deal tie-ins. From what I can see, Palm Beach needs to send Scripps packing and save the taxpayers a few hundred million dollars in subsidies.
Posted by: Purple Avenger | Saturday, February 03, 2007 at 09:08 PM
I know about the Scripps issue, because here in Orlando, Orange County offered them 300 million....for them to create 300 jobs ($1 million per job)
Its "Business Socialism" run amok.
Local leaders would be better served if they made it easier for local businesses to grow....offer tax breaks, punish those who out-source (out-sourcing lowers revenue brought in locally)
The Business-Scoialist model of economics is suicidal. Unfortunately politicians on both sides ascribe to it...when there are better methods to local economic growth
Posted by: DoorMart | Sunday, February 04, 2007 at 07:29 AM
Google Senior Advisor Al Gore: Copyright infringement is an inconvenient truth.
Posted by: Laura | Sunday, February 04, 2007 at 10:09 AM