From a hacker libertarian's perspective the TPP is pretty bad. I certainly dislike it. But if we're being honest, in the grand scheme of things it's not that big of a deal. Our world wouldn't end; the TPP would just end what little hope we had for looser IP restrictions, at least legislatively derived.

More importantly, almost nobody outside our community really cares about those IP restrictions, whether or not they matter. And from Google's perspective those restrictions are definitely a net benefit short- and medium-term, whether or not the dire predictions from the EFF pan out. Google makes their money from advertising; the bulk of people going onto the internet the world over do so to consume modern media; and stronger, US-like IP protections in other markets will accelerate the growth of media consumption by making American media companies more comfortable expanding and easing digital distribution overseas. And for better or worse American media companies are so huge and sophisticated they have the capability to induce tremendous amounts of consumption. More eyeballs spending more time on the Internet is more money for Google, period.

Our community also opposes the TPP because it will enforce private mediation of many trade disputes arising from domestic laws. I also dislike this aspect. In addition to being an engineer I also took a mid-career break to go to law school, so I have uncharacteristically informed opinions in this regard. But from a 10,000' perspective, this aspect is also unlikely to be significant short- or medium-term. At worse those mediations would generally favor U.S. companies, although going strictly by historical numbers they're not yet as unfair as domestic arbitration. Theoretically they'll hamper legislative autonomy, but trade agreements by their very nature will do that because the terms can't be rescinded unilaterally without international repercussions. Again, in the short- and medium- term they'll regularize business proceedings in some legally less developed jurisdictions. Long story short, it's all a net benefit for somebody like Google or basically any American corporation.

The reason why TPP is becoming increasingly less viable is because most of the gains will accrue to media and so-called "IP" companies, and almost all the costs will be borne by blue collar labor. Because the U.S. has weak and ineffective mechanisms for mitigating dislocation, the TPP is likely to increase real or at least perceived economic and political inequality. Significant opposition has not arisen because of the technical reasons that concern the hacker community, although enforced mediation is being used rather cynically (but understandably) to rally support from other interest groups.

As for secrecy, all trade agreements are negotiated secretly and always have been. You don't want everybody's finger in the pie, otherwise nothing would ever get done, especially in our modern political atmosphere where we suffer from paralysis because interest groups have forgotten how to compromise. And, yes, companies get to stick their finger in the pie on occasion because whether you like it or not, it's unrealistic to think that a multi-billion dollar conglomerate has economic interests equal to you or I. Once upon a time some non-corporate interests had a seat at the table; specifically, trade unions. But American conservatives and businesses have substantially diminished their economic, and thus their political, influence.

As politics has become more polarized, and as the influence of non-corporate interests has waned, so have negotiations become moderately less transparent. But many of those document "leaks" were no accident, and the only revelations were in fine print, which despite all the hand-wringing will only matter at the margins. The broad details were always known publicly, or at least to anybody paying attention. CEOs gossip like anybody else; anything a company knew would have been easily discoverable by a decent journalist. (Yet another reason to pay for a real newspaper subscription, or to otherwise financially support the journalist community, if you can.)

Finally, Google isn't part of the hacker crowd. Even if they were, they're so large that their interests could be such that even if they were trying to "not be evil" they could still reasonably support the TPP. Nonetheless, for better or worse they and similar companies represent the "techies" at the negotiating table, not the EFF. And that's just the reality of the situation, whether we like or not.