Google Just Put $280 Million Into A Partnership With SolarCity

In Mountain View, California, at the Google headquarters, the word in question is “transparency,” and the master is Google’s executive team and board of directors. It is the company’s shareholders who, like Alice, are left confused and in the dark.
Google has come under fire recently for its lack of transparency. Google has a long history of secrecy, but now it appears to be keeping important information from its shareholders. The most recent controversy surrounds Google’s sortie into alternative energy investments.
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As a board member, Doerr has a fiduciary duty to Google shareholders and not to his own wallet or his personal policy preferences. And shareholders have a right to know how this incredible happenstance materialized — but Google’s leadership isn’t talking.
That is why, representing the National Center for Public Policy Research, I presented a shareholder proposal at Google’s June 2 shareholder meeting asking the company to disclose any board member investments that represent a financial conflict of interest for Google.
The proposal called for a company report to the shareholders that details these conflicts and explains how they are addressed. Shareholders, our proposal said, have a right to know if board members are exerting undue influence or personally benefiting from questionable investments that may damage Google’s bottom line.
Google’s board responded in its proxy statement, saying:

We agree with the [National Center] that transparency and compliance with the Google Code of Conduct are important. However, we disagree that a report to stockholders is a useful mechanism for ensuring that transparency.

So Google likes the idea of transparency, but not the actual practice of it?