|
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
Google Hiring GOP Lobbyists
After years on the political sidelines, Google has been hiring lobbying firms and consultants with ties to GOP leaders in an effort to influence government policy toward the multibillion-dollar Internet giant. Last year Google hired the bipartisan lobbying firm Podesta Mattoon, whose lobbyists include Daniel Mattoon, a Republican and longtime friend of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and Lauren Maddox, a former top aide to Newt Gingrich. Now it has also brought in the DCI Group, which has strong ties to presidential adviser Karl Rove. Its Senior Vice President Stuart Roy is a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, The New York Times reports. Google’s emerging army of advisers "would help it fight fires along several policy lines, including copyright law, access to the Internet and privacy issues like its successful court fight this month to narrow a Justice Department subpoena over disclosure of its users’ searches,” according to the Times.
Story Continues Below
Google’s need for more clout in Washington became evident last month when the search engine company, along with Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Yahoo, were attacked by lawmakers over their business dealings in China. House members accused the firms of abetting the communist regime in censoring Internet communications and possibly endangering Chinese Internet users. Earlier this year Google announced that it would filter sensitive topics – such as Tibet and human rights – from Web searches in China, and Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said it was "astounding" that Google would cooperate with such censorship "just to make a buck." "The lack of a presence is what they recognized needed to get remedied fast,” Harry W. Clark, a former Bush administration staffer and managing partner of the Stanwich Group – which has just been hired as a management consultant for Google – told the Times after the more recent attack on Capitol Hill. Google’s move to cozy up to influential Republicans is a sharp turnaround for the company – in the 2004 election cycle, Google employees gave Democrats 99 percent of their campaign contributions, NewsMax reported earlier.
Goggle’s outlay for lobbying services is still relatively small. The company is increasing its spending on outside firms this year to well over $500,000, officials said, not including payments to some consulting groups. By comparison, Microsoft spent nearly almost $9 million last year on lobbying. But Rhett Dawson, president of the Information Technology Industry Council, told the Times that Google "is quickly going through a maturation phase that a lot of companies have gone through that shows it pays to pay attention to Washington or it can hurt you in ways that don't reflect well on you.”
Editor's note:
Inside Cover Stories
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Print Page 
Forward Page 
|
| All Rights Reserved © 2009 NewsMax.Com |