Fear of Google: For Reals

If you were asked a few years ago, what keeps government open, the answer would have been clear: the laws regarding open meetings and public records. Today, that's still true, but clearly the Internet has played a huge role in allowing the exchange and discovery of information about government.

So that must be why it seems so funny to me that the Internet Goliath, Google, plays secret government. I see this from an article by Zach Patton in the latest issue of Governing. One telling paragraph:

When negotiations began, Google insisted that more than 70 local officials sign non-disclosure agreements forbidding them to talk about the matter. So when two public hearings were held in December 2006 to discuss tax breaks for the company, elected officials weren't allowed to utter Google's name. What's more, local officials helped Google quietly buy up land in the area through a newly created nonprofit that concealed the company's identity. In all, Google won more than $260 million worth of state and local subsidies — and all of it was worked out behind closed doors.

Since the circumstances described in the article, Google and the city apparently have a more open relationship. But clearly there is still secrecy involved .. again, as you would see in a typical business opening a major center like this.

Wow, for a cutting-edge Internet organization, this is a pretty 19th century approach to democracy. As the article notes, though, pretty much everyone plays this game. So maybe it's unfair to single out Google. In fact, I know it is unfair to single them out. But perhaps this situation illustrates that no matter how the technology changes, the politics of situations may not.