Google to play GOP convention role

Google to play GOP convention role despite Trump critics

Google has confirmed it will play a formal role at the 2016 Republican convention — despite pressure from critics who want the tech giant to withdraw because of Donald Trump's incendiary rhetoric targeting women, immigrants and minorities.

The company told POLITICO Thursday it will serve as the official livestream provider at the July convention in Cleveland, offering election trends, convention videos, virtual reality tools and other data to attendees and viewers. It provided similar services at the Democratic and Republican conventions in 2012 and for both parties' presidential debates earlier this year.

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Google hasn't taken a position on any of the candidates chasing the White House in 2016. Still, its mere presence at the GOP convention is

sure to spark new opposition from liberal groups and civil rights advocates, who have already been pushing the company — and others, like Microsoft and Xerox — to pull out in opposition to Trump.

Google's acknowledgment came the same day that a collection of activists — ColorOfChange, Free Press Action Fund and others — mounted a small protest outside the search giant's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. The demonstrators, who numbered about a dozen, sought to deliver a petition with 500,000 signatures calling on the company to withdraw. They also sent a plane over the Google campus with a banner that read "#dumptrump," and ran ads on Facebook with a similar message.

"We want Google to pull all of their support for a Trump-led Republican national convention," said Mary Alice Crim, field director for Free Press Action Fund. "We’re asking for that to be immediate, and we do hope after today’s petition delivery [the company] will talk with us."

Google declined to say if it has donated any funds or technology to the GOP convention along with taking the role of official livestream provider. In 2012, the company made at least $350,000 in donations to the Republican convention that nominated Mitt Romney, according to Federal Election Commission records. Google executive Eric Schmidt, then the company's CEO, provided similar support to the Democrats that year.

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A spokeswoman for the GOP convention did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Trump's ascendancy in this year's Republican campaign has put many potential corporate sponsors in a bind. Large companies, including Google, have typically established a presence at the political conventions for marketing and influence building purposes, and they tend to support both parties' events in the interest of parity. Fearing a backlash, however, some companies are re-evaluating their plans: Coca-Cola — which had been targeted by ColorOfChange and others — has already said it will donate far less to the GOP convention this year than it had in 2012.

The GOP front-runner's history of inflammatory statements threatens tech companies in particular, given the industry's progressive home base in Silicon Valley and its efforts to promote diversity in its workforce.

In the past, tech giants have buckled to some liberal pressure campaigns. Google, for example, quit the American Legislative Exchange Council in 2014 after intense criticism from progressive groups. ALEC is a conservative organization that had drafted model legislation designed to undermine climate regulation, and activists slammed Google for backing what they called climate change deniers.