Is Google Really Committed to ‘Universally Accessible’ Information?
Conn Carroll /
As defenders of the free market, The Heritage Foundation fully supports Google’s private sector investments in clean energy technologies. However, there are some troubling nuggets of information buried in today’s New York Times article on Google’s energy interests. Miguel Helft reports:
Google has also increased its lobbying in Washington on energy issues. … Google has gone to great lengths to conceal how much electricity it uses in its data centers. For instance, Google agreed to build a $600 million data center in Oklahoma only after the State Legislature passed a law exempting public utilities from disclosing the energy use of their largest customers. Google has also vowed to be carbon neutral, but unlike its rival Yahoo, for instance, it has refused to reveal its overall carbon emissions.
Google’s mission statement reads: “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
How does paying off the Oklahoma legislature to make information on public utilities less transparent comport with making information ‘universally accessible and useful’?