Academics on Google’s payroll?

A logo sign outside of the headquarters of Google on Jan. 24, 2016 in Mountain View, Calif. (Kristoffer Tripplaar/Sipa USA/TNS)

The Google Transparency Project, an arm of an organisation called the Campaign for Accountability, released a study this month claiming that Google funnelled money to hundreds of academic research projects related to antitrust, intellectual property and other legal policy issues important to the company's bottom line. 

Worse, the Google Transparency Project alleged that most of the resulting publications failed to disclose Google's financial stake in the research. Pitched as an expose of corporate corruption of the ivory tower, the story got immediate traction in national and international media outlets.