Google's New Lobbying Power in Washington

*SECADM writes "Learning from Microsoft's error, Google is building a lobbying power house in Washington." From the Washington Post article: Two years ago, Google was on the verge of making that Microsoft-like error. Davidson, then a 37-year-old former deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology, was the search-engine company's sole staff lobbyist in Washington. As recently as last year, Google co-founder Sergey Brin had trouble getting meetings with members of Congress. To change that, Google went on a hiring spree and now has 12 lobbyists and lobbying-related professionals on staff here — more than double the size of the standard corporate lobbying office — and is continuing to add people.

Comments

Do no evil

[thewiz]

I'm surprised that the guys from Google can't get politicians to talk to them. After all, their willingness to help China censor the web and now using lobbyists is definitely a sign that they say one thing and mean the opposite. They're beginning to sound like the congresscritters.

Re:So?

[TooMuchToDo]

A company is a distinct entity in the US system, and has plenty of the same rights as a person. So why can't it have lobbyists looking out for it's interests? Shut the fuck up and stop bitching until you do something as valuable or more then what Google has done.

Fucking Slashdot. Figures.