Eric Schmidt Has an Interest. Is It a Conflict?

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D-NY) appointed a three-person commission to offer thoughts on the use of technology in schools. The group, the governor’s office said in a statement, will be “charged with advising the state on how to best invest” the $2 billion the governor plans to raise in a “Smart Schools” bond issue in the fall.

Eric E. Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, is one of the three, but his appointment raised some eyebrows. Schmidt’s company has a commercial interest in seeing more Chromebook computers, which run Google’s Chrome web software, and the company’s productivity applications, Google Apps, being used in schools.

And Schmidt’s appointment struck Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit advocacy group with a history of pursuing Google, mostly on privacy issues, as a conflict of interest.

Last month, it sent a letter of protest to Cuomo’s office, and got no reply. On May 12, the watchdog group, based in California, filed a complaint with the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics, saying that Schmidt has “serious, troubling and unlawful conflicts of interest” that should preclude him from serving on the commission.