Show And Tell, Please

On the question of whether such industry sponsored research fellowships are biased towards the interests of the industry, the answer depends on the institutional arrangement through which these fellowships are administered. In the case of the Google Policy Fellowship, the fellowship is not directly administered by Google but instead through an established and respected research institution, which ensures neutrality and unbiasness. Importantly, the mediating research institution needs to have a demonstrated history of taking an independent issue based stand regardless of which side of the debate the sponsoring industry falls on. In contrast, if the fellowship is directly administered by the sponsoring industry then an inexperienced researcher would find it extremely difficult to appreciate both sides of the argument.

My personal experience with the Google Policy Fellowship was very satisfactory. I worked on issues related to the chilling effects on free expression as a result of the present rules on intermediary liability. I was given an excellent balance of both freedom and guidance by both Google and the host research institution. I was asked to formulate an independent point of view regardless of how it affected Google. The final research output of my fellowship argued for greater clarity in the intermediary liability framework to prevent undue censorship of online free expression. Since the results of the research coincided with the interests of online intermediaries including Google, the research output was widely publicised in newspapers and also used as advocacy material by numerous intermediaries. I was also given the opportunity to present my research output at numerous national and international conferences. It would be hard for me to speculate whether the same opportunities would have presented before me if my research output did not coincide with the interests of intermediaries like Google. But in hindsight, I appreciate Google's efforts at ensuring that my point of view remain unbiased.

Given that the policy making arena in India is particularly opaque, Google and its kind face a challenging task playing their role as constructive stakeholders. Within the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), contrasting policy making procedures are followed by the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) and the Department of Information Technology (now DEITY), with one department being very transparent and the other being relatively opaque. Specifically, the Department of Telecom refers most policy matters to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, which follows an open consultative process inviting comments from a wide range of stakeholders and giving reasoned decisions for accepting or rejecting any comments. In contrast, even if comments are invited on draft rules by the Department of Information Technology, it does not have any obligation for giving reasoned decisions for accepting or rejecting stakeholder comments, which sometimes makes the consultation process frustrating and redundant.

Despite the openness in the policy making by the Department of Telecommunications, industry associations of telecom operators often sponsor research publications by consulting firms to create media awareness and to create public pressure on the government. Therefore it is not surprising that Google often sponsors policy conferences, round tables and research fellowships to create awareness about the policy hurdles faced by it under the paradigm of Department of Information Technology.

Google has been accused in many jurisdictions of abusing its dominance in the search engine market to create dominance in other product markets. Additionally, it has also been accused of not enforcing reasonable restrictions on free expression, violating privacy norms, infringing intellectual property rights and not cooperating with security agencies. While most of these accusations are fact specific and have to be dealt with in the courts, Google has been trying to create the necessary policy environment through conferences, round tables and fellowships to convince governments to bring legislations that clarify what may be considered legal in order to create certainty in its business in the long run. It is important for Google to educate the policy makers of its concerns via these activities because the old legal principles of the non-virtual world can not be directly applied to the internet. The task becomes even more complicated because each country treats these issues differently, converting the single border-less internet into a multiplicity of jurisdiction specific clouds.

Google regularly publishes a transparency report on chilling effects, take downs and censorships administered at the request of governments. On similar lines, the onus is on Google to also publish a transparency report for the policy conferences, round tables, fellowships and other advocacy events sponsored by it. It is to be noted that Google also often indirectly sponsors such activities under the aegis of umbrella organisations like the Asia Internet Coalition and Global Network Initiative, which keep Google's involvement invisible to the public. Further, in many conferences and policy round tables, the government and unorganised groups, such as victims of injurious expressions that are publicly disseminated using Google's services, are not adequately represented. In these transparency reports, Google should highlight how it is influencing the policy arena and what steps it has taken to keep the advocacy unbiased. Being a champion of online free expression, people expect Google to set high transparency standards. Fighting opaqueness with opaqueness would still make Google evil.

Rishabh Dara is the first India Google Policy Fellow and an IIM-A scholar. A shorter version of this appears in print. E-mail your columnist: rishabhdara AT gmail.com