Letter to the Committee Dear Delegates,

We want to first welcome you to VAMUN XL! We are honored to serve as your chairs during a conference that somehow is happening during these historic times!

My name is Daniela Moreno and I am a third-year from Panama and Costa

Rica. I am going to major in Youth and Social Innovation in the UVA School of Education and Human Development. My MUN experience started when I was in high school in Kampala, Uganda where I was head of the MUN Club at school. I chaired the European Space Union Committee for last year’s WGSS.

I am delighted to be back chairing a WGSS committee and I cannot wait to see what you all have in store for us. I want all of you to leave this committee feeling accomplished in your work and satisfied with your participation. I encourage you all to collaborate and work together to create innovative directives to put us ahead.

My name is Sarah Rocca and I am also a third-year from Norfolk, VA. I am a Foreign Affairs major with a minor in Spanish. I did MUN all throughout high school and have contributed to VAMUN WGSS both as a delegate and a crisis director. My hope is that you all have fun, practice your skills as a crisis delegate, and build the empire to take over the world! Do not hesitate to email either of us with any questions; we know it will be a different experience this year because of the pandemic, but we still want to make this as enjoyable as possible for everyone.

Letter to the Committee 1 This year’s WGSS topic is a very unique one that allows for creativity and it’s a chance for you all to explore taking risks in committee and with your crisis arcs. So whether this is your first time or last time at VAMUN, we encourage you all to treat this as a learning opportunity and a chance to grow.

We are very excited to meet you all! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

Daniela Moreno

Sarah Rocca

Letter to the Committee 2 Topic One: Company Background Background

Started in 1995 by two college students, and , Google has grown to be one of the main technology companies that have shaped what we know of the modern internet.1

This partnership, which started out by working in their Stanford dorm rooms, gave rise to the search engine that used links to determine the impor- tance of pages on the internet. They called this search engine Backrub which was later changed to the name we know of today - Google. The name itself is a play on their mission statement: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”2 The name is a mathematical expression for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.

From there on out in the following years, Google captivated the attention of the academic community. Being in the heart of tech, Silicon Valley, investors became very curious and in August 1998, , co-founder of

Sun Microsystems, wrote both Larry and Sergey a check for 100,000 dollars, which they used to create Google Inc.

This investment was huge; Larry and Sergey were able to move from their dorm offices to a garage in Menlo Park, . As Google grew and made advancements, so did their offices. Eventually, a garage with colorful carpets and a ping pong table was not enough and The was born in Moun- tain View California. 1”How We Started And Where We Are Today” - Google 2”How We Started And Where We Are Today” - Google

Company Background 3 Google’s mission to this day is to “search for better answers.”3 Today, there are 69 Google Locations in the U.S. and Canada, 8 in Latin America, 41 in

Europe, 28 in the Asia-Pacific region, and 8 in Africa and the Middle East. 4

Google’s size and broad portfolio make it one of the top four influential companies in the high-tech marketplace. Besides their many products and services ranging from to YouTube to consumer products, the original search tool remains the core of its success. More than 70 percent of the world’s online searches are handled by Google placing it at the heart of the majority of the internet uses’ experiences and daily lives.5

Google and Alphabet Inc.

Google activity began to explode in 2000 when it became the client search engine for Yahoo!. By 2004, Yahoo! eventually dispensed with Google services but by this time, users were using Google up to 200 million times daily. By

2011, this number was up into the billions.6 The company became so popular that searching the internet became an actual verb and ‘to google’ or ‘googling’ is now a part of our everyday language when searching the internet.

This extraordinary growth eventually became too much and in 2001, Brin and Page hired as chairman and chief executive officer of Google.

Together Schmidt, Page, and Brin ran the company until 2011 where they had a rearrangement of roles. Page took over as the CEO, Schmidt as executive chairman, and Brin as director of special projects.7

3”How We Started And Where We Are Today” - Google 4”Google’s Global Headquarters And Offices Around The World” - 2020 5”Google — History Facts” - 2020 6”Google — History Facts” 2020 7”Google — History Facts” 2020

Company Background 4 Google’s initial public offering in 2004 raised 1.66 billion dollars and caught the public eye on how the selling of its shares was handled. Initially, shares were sold in a public auction. By doing this it put shareholders and new investors on even grounds as the financial industry professionals, which were different for a company this size. Google kept growing more and more and on August

15, 2015, Google recognized itself as the subsidiary of the holding company

Alphabet Inc.8 The things that remained under Google were: internet search, advertising apps, maps, Android, and Youtube. Under Alphabet Inc., there were separate Google ventures such as biology research company , home products company Nest, and research lab Google X. Once again, there was a re- organization of roles for Google and Alphabet. Page became CEO of Alphabet,

Brin president of Alphabet, and Schmidt executive chairman. became the new CEO of Google.9 Through Alphabet, each company in the umbrella makes products for a different industry. It can be argued that each company within Alphabet has operations independent from the engine. The separation between Alphabet’s main business - google search- and other companies provides space and a safety net to carry out experiments with- out worrying about how it would affect their cash cow the search engine.10

In 2017, Alphabet decided to once again reorganize themselves and create an intermediate holding company called XXVI Holdings.11 What this action did was to make Google a limited liability company. In 2018 and 2019, Schmidt,

Brin, and Page left their respective posts but remained on Alphabet’s board

8”Google — History Facts” 2020 9”Google — History Facts” 2020. 10”Why Google Became Alphabet” 2020 11”Google — History Facts” 2020

Company Background 5 of directors. Sundar Pichai became CEO of XXVI while also maintaining his position at Google.

Google Services and Growth

Google Video and Youtube

Google bought Youtube in October 2006 for 1.65 billion which is about 2.1 billion today.12 Currently, Youtube brings in roughly 15 million/year which is

10 percent of all Google revenue.13 Youtube has approximately 2 billion users and 79 percent of internet users reported having a Youtube account.14

Google Earth

In October 2004, Google bought Keyhole Corporation which was a digital mapping service.15 Google took the technology developed by Keyhole and made what is now . Maps recently started having ads, so it generates some revenue but is not as instrumental as Youtube or Chrome.16

Google Apps and Chrome

Chrome makes up 70 percent of the internet browser market, leaving Mi- crosoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox significantly behind in market value. Even though it was late to the market, Chrome has surpassed other options and is “ a very profitable part of the company” according to Executive Chairman Eric

Schmidt.17

12Sorkin and Peters 13Statt 14Mohsin 15WSJ 16Hartmans 17Page

Company Background 6 Google Cloud

Google Cloud makes up roughly 7 percent of Google’s revenue, which is equal to 17 billion dollars. Furthermore, it is 3rd on the market for cloud software, behind Amazon Web services and Microsoft Azure. Cloud’s Chief,

Tom Kurian, is optimistic about the cloud’s ability to find gaps in the market and rise in the ranks.18

Android

Google phones, while not the most popular, are on the rise. In 2018, despite the value of the smartphone market declining, Google phones increased in value by 43 percent. Furthermore, most Google phone users are happy with their phone which puts Google in a position to expand their Android market.19

Alphabet Inc. Branches

Calico

Calico is a research organization looking into the biology of aging and age- related diseases. They emphasize their unique approach to research: a combi- nation of technology, scientific research, and computing to develop answers to some of biology’s hardest questions. As a result of their research, Calico has produced medications and published their findings in scientific journals across the world.20 However, Google and Calico have been criticized for keeping some of their research secret for undisclosed reasons and their vague reports.21

18Stavitz 19Maring 20Calico 21Belluz

Company Background 7 Google X

As Alphabets premiere Moonshot organization, they have also been crit- icized for their semi-secret operations. Their mission is to create and launch new products and technologies that will improve the world. Their broad mis- sion as a company allows them to get involved in a variety of projects, including

Google’s self-driving cars and Loon which is a company that produces balloons with wifi to make the internet more accessible.22

Nest

In 2014, Google acquired Nest laboratories where they started developing what is now commonly known as the , Google Nest. Over the years, Google has expanded their in-home smart devices to include Google Nest

Home which includes functions like locking doors and turning on lights as well as a virtual assistant by setting alarms and answering questions. Google Nest devices have become more popular in the past 5 years, but faces competition from other companies, such as Amazon with their Alexa in-home device.23

22Thompson 23Ravenscraft

Company Background 8 Topic Two: Public Opinion and Government Support Google is undoubtedly the most used search engine on the internet. Its fast success allowed Google to expand into one of the most powerful technology companies that creates smartphones, tablets, and virtual assistants, self-driven cars, online storage systems ( and ), and has even branched out into scientific research. Its wide expansion has been so successful that these Google products are everywhere in modern society. In 2017, out of

954 Americans, 639 of them reported that they use Google daily and 282 said it was an “integral part of their lives.”24 Furthermore, the verb “googling” is used in everyday life. However, public perception of Google has declined in recent years after multiple investigations concerning users’ privacy and data. In fact, in 2019, 81 percent of Americans reported concern with their privacy online and 79 percent said they are concerned with technology companies collecting and selling their data.25

Google’s relationship with the government is slightly more complicated than with the general public. Google has spent millions of dollars to influence politics and public policy to maintain their position of power on Wall Street, Silicon

Valley, and Pennsylvania Ave.26 Furthermore, their office across the world reportedly uses money to influence politicians and researchers. Similar to the decline in public opinion, however, influence over government and politics have declined due to investigations of privacy and antitrust law. The House Judiciary

Committee recently concluded their investigation into Google, Apple, Facebook,

24Kunst 25Auxier et. al. 26Pridham

Public Opinion and Government Support 9 and Amazon for antitrust violations.27 As a result of the investigation, the

Department of Justice is suing Google for antitrust violations concerning their search engine. Among other things, the Google search engine often gives their own programs, such as Google Maps or Google reviews, as the top-results which the government argues inherently crowds out other actors.28

Moving Forward

Google is facing some difficulties both in the public and governmental eye.

After an investigation into all the major tech companies, Google was the only one to be sued by the DoJ. Now more than ever, the US government will be paying attention to Google’s business practices and they are looking for any- thing that will help them win the lawsuit. However, while public opinion has dipped slightly, the announcement of the lawsuit did not last in the news cycle very long and is not the primary thing on the public’s minds. Furthermore,

Google does not have to go to court until 2022, so there is room for the admin- istration elected in 2020 to change course of the lawsuit. Furthermore, people are looking towards the tech industry to be leaders as more people are working and learning from home. Google has many resources and assets to help equip people for the pandemic and make their life at home more enjoyable through their technology. With public opinion on the decline, any way that Google can help the public would be in their favor.

27Feiner 28https://www.vamun.org/wgss-facebookWaters, Stacey, and Shubber

Public Opinion and Government Support 10 Questions to Consider

There is a lot in Google’s favor moving into the future, including their many assets in their virtual (Cloud, Gmail, search engine, etc) and physical (Pixel phone, Google Nests, Waymo cars, ect.) as the demand for these products keeps growing. Furthermore, Google has continued to expand into people’s lives in more ways than one, making the company vital to the new demand for online living and learning. However, there is also quite a bit working against

Google in the battle against other tech companies. There have been many criticisms, as noted above, concerning the secrecy behind some of Google’s products and practices. In a time when Google will be under the microscope of the US government’s eye, it is crucial that Google consider adopting a more transparent business model for many of their programs. Google is well placed to become even more of a market superpower, but the public and government opinion of them must improve in order to do so.

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