ABC News provides free advertising for Google

In what amounts to a massive Google plug from ABC News, environment reporter Sarah Clarke has nothing but praise for the wondrous new tool of democracy, the "Show Your Vote" online "voting" system:

With three days until the United Nations climate summit kicks off in Copenhagen, internet giant Google has helped launch a new tool to give people a vote on the outcome of the crucial meeting.

The online virtual ballot box is able to collate global statistics on who wants what, and it is an innovation by a man who has made it his personal mission to act on climate change.

James Hansen, the most prominent of climate scientists, thinks the Copenhagen conference is indeed crucial in that it must fail.

As noted the other day, the "virtual ballot box" is nothing of the sort, offering no choices to "voters" who can vote for nothing other than "Earth". It is nothing more than a tarted-up online petition. No statistics on "who wants what" can come from this petition.

Every day Google innovationist Justin Baird pedals to work at the internet giant, where he is thinking big in his global campaign to act on climate change.

"My personal mission is to drive positive change through technology," he said.

"I am in a position where I can understand the issues surrounding climate change. And understanding the technology solution that can empower us to communicate collectively."

Two Google plugs in the first three paragraphs. Baird's whiz bang new Google technology isn't meant to find out "who wants what"; it's designed to "drive positive change". And his work at Google has somehow endowed him with a special understanding of climate change issues, which is why he came up with an innovative new type of online petition that will "empower us to communicate collectively", as do all petitions.

His brainchild is called "Show Your Vote". It allows people to register in a virtual ballot box that can be embedded into any website.

The focus of the campaign is to show world leaders in Copenhagen what the people want.

Brainchild = online petition. And again with the "who wants what" nonsense.

Google has backed it and so has the United Nations.

Earth Hour is also hoping it will deliver a more accurate idea of public support for climate change action.

Another Google plug, this time linking the search giant to the UN. The petition has been online since at least 22 November and so far has only 63,073 signers, thus clearly showing very little support for "climate change action."

It's getting toward the end of the article, is there time for another Google plug? You betcha:

Chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, Tim Flannery, says the Google tool is an interesting invention.

"I can imagine a day not so long from now where the UN secretary-general is elected through Show Your Vote. It's a very interesting world that we're entering into," he said.

And a world where Mr Baird wants more people to have their say.

Things will be really simple when Google takes control of elections - it'll be one person, one vote, one candidate; they'll count the votes just for the fun of it.

ABC News should be ashamed of putting this error-filled promotional rubbish online.