Electronic Frontier Foundation Incorporated is Run by/for Corporations Now (Members' Money is Less Than a Quarter of the Money EFF Receives)
Poisoned like the Linux Foundation (money from hostile parties), rendering an NGO more like a tax-exempt corporate helpdesk
THE Techrights crew spent about an hour trying to make sense of the EFF's finances, seeing that they surged last year and EFFective advocacy partly stopped (they barely ever mention patents anymore). 2 years ago members dues were just about a third of the total revenue. Last year? See for yourselves:
This is what EFF says about itself:
Does that sound accurate? Influence Watch says: "EFF has been described as focusing on government intrusion and exploitation rather than any commercial issues since much of its funding comes from Silicon Valley. According to the Baffler, EFF has taken millions in donations from Google and Facebook. As EFF launched, it also received donations from large technology businesses such as IBM, Microsoft, and Bell Atlantic. As the internet grew, EFF lobbied against any government interference or federal oversight. The Baffler described EFF as “America’s oldest and most influential internet business lobby.”
So they do take money from Facebook, apparently millions. That explains the latest debacle, framing Facebook surveillance as some championship of "end-to-end encryption".
Can we have the original EFF back, Cindy? You've ousted your own, still-living founders:
Taking bad or poisonous (Facebook) money like that would explain the pivot, a reader explains, and there is an example from Harvard, as we noted days ago. Facebook pays, the critics get ousted.
In this latest high-profile example, Harvard's Kennedy School's Joan Donovan was fired at behest of Facebook after the Zuckerbergs had given a huge lump sum of money. Are all remaining foundations up for sale and not functioning as they were originally meant to? Should ordinary people bother giving them money anymore?
Then there's Wikipedia taking bribes from Bill Gates [1, 2].
In its IRS filings the EFF does not reveal which corporations and oligarchs give money. It all gets lumped together into a total sum and a single generic word. █