[oska]

To play devil's advocate: What role does a for-profit advertising company have in encouraging people to vote? And what are their motives in doing so?

Disclaimer: I haven't read the pdf (only responding to your comment) and don't really hold a strong position on this question, other than being sceptical of Google's participation in any political process.

[DannyBee]

So, I was the person who created the "where do i vote" for Google originally and ran it for years.

My motive was "Where do i vote" is basically the top query on Google on election day, and people would get crappy answers. In fact, it was actually Ginny's idea (she's very civic minded), and she needed an engineer to help, and I was the only engineer in the DC office.

So i said "how hard it could it be" (famous last words) and did it. 2 swe's in geo got dragged in along the way because they thought it was cool (eventually we just staffed a team on our own).

Michael geary, who is on HN somewhere, did all the JS.

Along the way, i spent my time and energy creating the voting information project (with pew charitable trusts), and open standards for sharing the data necessary to answer this question, after discovering what a proprietary crap hole basic civic data like this is.

So there you go, now you know the motives.

In fact, if you ask some of the early data partners (until i could get critical mass in opening the data), you will discover we were in fact the only ones they pretty much ever had who asked to have all personally identifying info, etc. stripped from data sources before they were given to us.

They found it quite funny, because this kind of data is actually a big business owned by large political operative companies that have tentacles in various states. The notion that someone didn't want to know the people associated with the address records was hilarious to them.

These databases are large lists of who lives where, their political affiliation, voting history, and various political districts they belong to.

We want addresses and districts only.

[oska]

I would make a distinction between curating voting information and displaying it once a user searches for that kind of information versus running a "Go Vote" banner (google doodle) on the home search page without a user having made any inquiry on that subject. The latter is what is being complained about in point 2 (I've now looked at the pdf).

[DannyBee]

I wouldn't. Pretty much everywhere tries to get the vote out. Most workplaces send out email reminders, etc. Every single person in the US gets a card in the mail reminding them to vote.

Literally everyone is trying to remind people to vote. This is a good thing.

Anyone complaining about anyone trying to remind people to vote is just ridiculous.

[oska]

It depends on whether you think everyone should be encouraged to vote or whether you think only people who are 'informed voters' should vote (people who have followed the political debate and are informed on policy positions, etc). The latter don't need to be encouraged; they are self-motivated.

Again, I'm not taking either position myself but those are two different political positions which exist. Google is choosing one and thus taking a political, pro-active stance.

[Guvante]

> only people who are 'informed voters' should vote

That is not a valid position to have and thus doesn't need to be considered.

Voting is the best way to figure out how everyone feels on things. As annoying as it is party lines giving free passes to incumbents that is a problem better solved via other methods such as term limits.

Even if someone is going to vote opposite of me I would rather they express that opinion than have the vote not hear their voice.

The solution to uniformed voters is for people to become informed not avoid people going to the polls.

[DannyBee]

This particular question was answered at the founding of our country, and doesn't need to be answered again. Also - attempts to do so since have mostly been naked racism/sexism[1]

Calling it a "political, pro-active stance" is, well, ridiculous.

I guess you can try to label everything, but i don't think you are going to find a lot of support for your attempt.

[1] I'm speaking about poll taxes, poll tests, etc.

[ajross]

To devil's advocate your devil's advocacy: let's just assume Google is encouraging people to vote because they know that more democrats will see that message, that they want democrats to win, and that's the only reason for them doing so.

What is wrong with that, and how would you propose to fix it via a mechanism that didn't also e.g. outlaw FOX News?

[marcosdumay]

Can FOX News (or any other media organization) do a campaign with the same impact as Google?

If they can, then this is just a random guy making things out of proportion and there's nothing useful there. If they can't, and Google can indeed change people's mind in a level unparalleled to any other organization, then you go looking for why and you either takes that power away, or makes sure it's available for everybody.

[mc32]

To play devil's advocate to your advocacy of the devil's advocate, what if Exxon or a right-leaning org offered discounts to people who "promise to vote Republican". Nothing binding, simply an unenforceable promise (gentleman's or lady's agreement) to vote for a party in exchange for a 20% discount on your fuel.

[ajross]

> what if Exxon or a right-leaning org offered discounts to people who "promise to vote Republican"

Vote selling is election fraud, which is a crime. Anyone who took those discounts would go to jail. Sounds fair to me.

I don't see how "Please vote" is remotely comparable to vote buying. Can you elaborate?

[ikeyany]

A better example would be what if Google gave out 'I Voted!' awards that, upon proof that you voted, gave you access to special Google features.

[ajross]

OK, I guess. But... they don't. So what's the argument here?

[agar]

This is a fascinating rabbit hole to go down.

When you consider some of the recent decisions about what constitutes "speech," it raises the important question of whether a private company influencing its customers' voting preferences would actually be protected.

How much different is it for a company to use its speech to influence a politician directly (donations, lobbying, PACs, etc.) vs. stating its political opinions on its own private "property" potentially to influence politics indirectly?

In physical space, is it legal to:

* Have a sign promoting a social position in the window of your private store? ("Say no to drugs!") * Have a sign promoting a political position? ("Say no to the Iraq war!") * Have a sign promoting a candidate? ("I like Ike!") * Tell customers who to vote for? ("Have a nice day, vote for JFK!") * Tell only customers that "look a certain way" who to vote for? ("As someone in a wheelchair, you should vote for FDR!")

Now convert all this to the online world with banner ads, user targeting, and personalization. Isn't it just free speech at scale?

[em-bee]

it's the scale that may tip the balance from voicing your opinion to mass-manipulation. i am not saying that online speech is mass-manipulation, but it has the potential to be, whereas the other has not. and because of this potential they need to be considered separately.

fwiw, an online "go vote" is not manipulation if it's not targeted even if the audience is an uneven demographic, but "i like ike" is. and while google search may have a younger demographic, they certainly don't intentionally limit that, since they want everyone to use google search.

[spaced-out]

They same role they have in offering free email, or a free calendar app. People wanted a vote-reminder application, so Google made one to increase engagement in its platform.

If for profit companies are Constitutionally allowed to make political donations, why would reminding people to vote be any different?

[identity0]

It's like changing a company's logo to a rainbow flag during pride month. It has basically zero cost and gains a minor increase in public perception as being a company that stands with "the people." (Telling people to vote has always been pretty popular, and I remember my friends sharing posts of their favourite celebrities telling people to vote.)

[cf498]

I dont think there is anything problematic in simply encouraging people to vote, even if you tend to reach certain groups better. A higher voter turnout should be something to strive for, its a sign for a healthier democracy. The current approach to discourage more voters of the opposite party to not go voting then your own get discouraged seems more then just a bit problematic.

Differently put, what harm is done by getting people to go vote when you are not influencing them to vote in a certain fashion? I would argue that only the opposite is problematic, to discourage people to vote.

Googles motivation shouldnt matter as long as they are not influencing who you are going to vote for.

But thats another topic on its own, I find it hard to argue why google should be singled out in a country where even news organizations endorse candidates. If they are to powerful dismember them instead of making a lex google.

[justinclift]

> to discourage more voters of the opposite party to not go voting then your own

"Vote rigging" would be the term.

[crazygringo]

It's a good business practice because it's good branding.

Companies intentionally try to associate their brand with other things seen as positive -- pride month, the Olympics, the environment, promoting diversity, etc.

Google does this with their home-page doodles. Encouraging people to vote is another feel-good brand association.

There's nothing nefarious here like Google promoting a specific political agenda, that's overthinking it. It simply improves their brand image which makes people more likely to trust and use and promote their products. It's the profit motive at work... which, to answer your question, is why a for-profit advertising company does it.

[joshuwa]

It's a marketing opportunity to encourage people to use their services to find polling stations and other related info.

[adamnemecek]

I agree. It's a Pandora's box I don't want to open.