Google-funded think tank sacks scholar who praised EU penalty

Search giant Google has contributed millions of dollars in funding for a think tank called New America. And when one of its scholars, Barry Lynn, criticised Google, he was fired.

Late in June, after a seven-year investigation, European antitrust regulators hit Google with a whopping $2.7-billion fine. The EU judgment found that Google used its market dominance to unfairly favour search results for its own services over its competitors.

One of those who applauded the record fine was Lynn, who says he has spent 20 years studying the adverse effects of monopolies. He has written two books as well as a number of articles on the subject of a few giant corporations controlling all of various types of production and supply.

For years, Lynn has been sounding the alarm that tech giants have way too much influence. And now, he is out of a job. He says that's because New America was partially funded by Google.

''On 27 June, my group [New America] published a statement praising the European Union for fining Google for violating antitrust law. Later that day I was told that Google - which provides substantial support to other programs at New America - said they wanted to sever all ties with the organization. Two days later I was told that the entire team of my Open Markets Program had to leave New America by September 1,'' says Lynn in an article published by The Washington Post.

According to The New York Times, the New America Foundation has since its founding in 1999 received more than $21 million from Google, its parent company's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, and his family's foundation. That money helped to establish New America as an elite voice in policy debates on the American left and helped Google shape those debates.

But not long after Lynn posted a statement on the think tank's website praising the EU penalty against Google, Schmidt, who had been chairman of New America until 2016, communicated his displeasure with the statement to the group's president, Anne-Marie Slaughter, according to the scholar.

Word of Schmidt's displeasure rippled through New America, which employs more than 200 people, including dozens of researchers, writers and scholars, most of whom work in sleek Washington offices where the main conference room is called the ''Eric Schmidt Ideas Lab.''

The episode left some people concerned that Google intended to discontinue funding, while others worried whether the think tank could truly be independent if it had to worry about offending its donors.

Those worries seemed to be substantiated a couple of days later, when Slaughter summoned Lynn to her office. He ran a New America initiative called Open Markets that has led a growing chorus of liberal criticism of the market dominance of telecom and tech giants, including Google, now part of a larger corporate entity known as Alphabet, for which Schmidt serves as executive chairman.

Slaughter told Lynn that ''the time has come for Open Markets and New America to part ways,'' according to an email from Slaughter to Lynn accessed by NYT. The email suggested that the entire Open Markets team of nearly 10 full-time employees and unpaid fellows would be exiled from New America.

While she asserted in the email that the decision was ''in no way based on the content of your work'', Slaughter accused Lynn of ''imperilling the institution as a whole.''

Lynn has charged that Slaughter caved in to pressure from Schmidt and Google, and in so doing, set the desires of a donor over the think tank's intellectual integrity.

''Google is very aggressive in throwing its money around Washington and Brussels, and then pulling the strings,'' Lynn said. ''People are so afraid of Google now.''

Hours after NYT published its article on the issue online Wednesday morning, Slaughter announced that the think tank had fired Lynn on Wednesday for ''his repeated refusal to adhere to New America's standards of openness and institutional collegiality''.

Google rejected any suggestion that it played a role in New America's split with Open Markets. Riva Sciuto, a Google spokeswoman, pointed out that the company supports a wide range of think tanks and other nonprofits focused on information access and internet regulation. ''We don't agree with every group 100 per cent of the time, and while we sometimes respectfully disagree, we respect each group's independence, personnel decisions and policy perspectives.''

New America's executive vice president, Tyra Mariani, said Lynn's exit was not in any way influenced by Google or Schmidt.

''New America financial supporters have no influence or control over the research design, methodology, analysis or findings of New America research projects, nor do they have influence or control over the content of educational programs and communications efforts,'' Mariani said.

Mariani and Sciuto said Google is continuing to fund New America.