@aral I'm curious what @librelounge think about their being funded by Google?

@aral

We were not aware that @conservancy is financed by Google. Thanks for pointing this out!

The choice of including the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) in the paper was inspired by the role of Bradley M. Kuhn in the creation of the Affero GPL (https://sfconservancy.org/blog/?author=bkuhn).

Since an involvement of Google conflicts with our standards (as stated in our statute https://wiki.f-si.org/index.php/F-Si_Statute), we have removed the SFC from the white paper. Anyhow, they have not provided any feedback to it.

@fsi @conservancy Thank you. It’s important to send a message to organisations that purport to champion freedom that they cannot do so while being funded by surveillance capitalists.

💕

@aral

Are you not concerned that that money that could have been used to fight the corps will now be used for something non-beneficial?

@wuwei No. That’s not how corruption works.

@aral

You're implying that the donation was intentional attempt at buying out the conservancy and not just a PR stunt to boost Google's image by donating to some random non-profit

If you have some proof for that I would like to see it

@wuwei Please, tell me what I’m implying.

@fsi @conservancy Update #2: Looks like @fsfe – Free Software Foundation Europe – is also funded by Google (https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus-2018.en.html)

The Free Silicon Foundation has now removed them from the whitepaper also.

I don’t even know what to say anymore. Disappointed doesn’t even begin to cover it.

@aral @fsi @conservancy @fsfe don’t let it get you down. You can only take one step at a time. Well done for noting and pointing out where funding issues are a conflict of interest. Others may now consider there own initial sources of funding going forward if they wish to be in theses spaces/ debates of privacy and free software.

@aral @xerz

We did not suspect that Google is since 2013 not only **a** sponsor, but **the main** sponsor, of the Free Software Foundation Europe @fsfe :
https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus-2013.en.html . Thanks for the hint!

This is like if ExxonMobil was financing Greenpeace.

Just like for the SFC @conservancy above, we removed the #FSFE from the white paper.

#GAFAM
#SurveillanceCapitalism

@fsi @aral

I don't think "main" is quite accurate: rather "the biggest", many years in a row.

@fsfe : for more transparency and the concerns raised here, how about publicly stating a precise percentage for any donator above 10%?

I do see that in 2017: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus-2017.en.html and 2018: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus-2018.en.html
Google's donations to FSFE covered no more than 10% of the budget.

This suggests that there are statistical fluctuations of the Google contribution to FSFE oscillating around 10%.

@fsi @aral @xerz @fsfe @conservancy Like that Privacy Conference at the University of Amsterdam some time ago. Main sponsors were Google and Palantir.

@xerz @fsi @conservancy Nope, it’s not unavoidable. We’re not funded by them. @Framasoft isn’t funded by them. Last I checked, @waag wasn’t funded by them… shall I go on?

No environmentalist organisation is funded by ExxonMobil. And if they tell you they are, well, then you know they’re not really for the environment.

@fsi @aral @conservancy That's very silly; the fact that Google is one of their sponsorsthem doesn't mean they have influence; The conservancy does a lot of good for a lot of free projects without pushing the projects to do anything. They've got enough morals not to take shit from Google.

@bamfic @aral @fsi @conservancy Whoa, hold on there. I fully agree that taking money from Google creates a conflict of interest, but even taking large sums from them is very different from being a front for Google.

@aidalgol @bamfic @fsi @conservancy You tell yourself that.

@aral @bamfic @fsi @conservancy Excuse me?

@aral @bamfic @fsi @conservancy Would you care to elaborate?