Google accused of paying academics MILLIONS to write papers that support its position on regulation and privacy

‘Google is accused of paying academics millions of pounds to write papers that support its position on regulation and privacy as part of a secret lobbying operation.
The tech giant has funded studies which assert that collecting vast amounts of data was fair in exchange for free services, it is claimed.
Other papers have declared that Google did not unfairly steer users to its own services at the expense of competitors, something for which it was fined £2.1billion by the EU last month.
In some cases researchers did not disclose that they had been paid by Google – raising questions about their transparency.
The tactic appears to echo methods used by the tobacco, pharmaceutical and food industries to influence consumers using the authority of science.
The claims come weeks after Google was given the largest ever fine by the EU for what it called ‘old school’ illegality by shutting out competitors on the internet.’
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