[Editor Charlie sez: More on Google Academics, Inc.]
Google has been quietly making a push to influence public policy — by dangling cash in front of academics.
The tech giant has paid researchers and professors from universities around the country stipends of $5,000 to $400,000 for dozens of research papers to help the company battle against regulators, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Some of the papers, which Google uses to influence government officials, don’t disclose that the company funded them.
University of Illinois law professor Paul Heald said he got $18,830 from Google for a project on copyrights — but his 2012 paper failed to mention the tech behemoth’s involvement.
“Oh, wow. No, I didn’t. That’s really bad,” he told the newspaper, adding that Google didn’t influence his work. “That’s purely oversight.”
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