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by math_and_stuff 1682 days ago
This is an irresponsible claim if not backed up with a citation.

Further, I happen to monitor corporate funding to nonprofits (including the EFF) and public reporting suggests EFF only received $7500 from Google in 2018 and $25K from Facebook.

Whereas Center for Democracy and Technology, which was founded by the former Executive Director of the EFF in 1994, received $430K and $500K, respectively.

See https://news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/face...

1 comments

“ Google gave the Electronic Frontier Foundation $75,000 in calendar year 2017, $15,500 in calendar year 2016, and $325,000 in calendar year 2015, according tax forms, annual reports, and interviews with the nonprofit.”

Add up all the money they’ve accepted from these types of companies over the last 10 years. They shouldn’t be accepting $1 from Google.

All of the figures from said article add up to EFF receiving a total of $478K from Facebook and Google over four calendar years (2015 through 2018).

Of course I agree that these orgs shouldn't accept money from tech giants, but any critique should be done accurately with citations.

I don't think forum posts require citations, especially when they're correct. This isn't a peer-reviewed paper, it's a forum comment.
> especially when they're correct

But that's the thing, its not correct. You stated the EFF has accepted millions from Facebook and Google, as in multiple millions of dollars. $478k is significantly less than multiple millions. Its over a million dollars away from being correct.

I didn’t specify a time frame or the specific companies. I’ve provided enough evidence to indicate this is true.

The larger point is also unequivocally proved: the EFF has massive conflicts of interest that it apparently thinks are fine, which makes it untrustworthy. If they accepted $100,000 from Google that would be just as much of a problem — it’s a huge amount of money. Extrapolating out from the sample data that’s easy to find, it does look like millions. If you want to conduct some in-depth research to prove that wrong please do, I’d be interested to see a full qualification for their horrible conflict of interest.

> I’ve provided enough evidence to indicate this is true.

Have you? You've provided evidence for less than half a million, yet you claim its at least $2M.

I do agree IMO they really shouldn't accept much money but you're claiming you've shared proof they've received multiple millions and yet you've only shared proof for less than half of that.