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

So?

[RevRigel]

He's just one US citizen. If he wants to have influence on Congress he can vote like the rest of us. The fact that he can't get personal meetings with them should be surprising or distressing, regardless of his net worth, given how difficult it would be for everyone else.

Re:So?

[Ibag]

He's not just one citizen, though. It has nothing to do with his net worth either. He's in charge of a company large enough that congress holds hearings and proposes bills that not only directly affect his company, but sometimes affect only his company. If 535 men were discussing whether to restrict what only you were doing or whether to help only your biggest competitors, you would be entitled to an audience with them too.

Or are his opinions about net neutrality and Chinese Internet censorship no more important than yours when congress discusses them?

Re:So?

[rtb61]

That is just really daft and probably the worst possible reason I have ever heard. The company has thousands of shareholders and hundreds of major investors and thousands of employees who also have a voice, how many times should the voice of that company be repeated over and over again to the exclusion of the general public.

He is just one citizen, with absolutely no more or less entitlement to access to politicians then any other citizen. If point of fact he has already well and truly profited by the system and the only reason for further access is to further inflate their personal profit. All people are created equally and should be treated as such in the eyes of the law and by politicians. It truly disgusts me that anybody thinks already wealthy people should have greater access than the rest of the community to politicians so as to further bloat their wealth.

In fact the system should be designed specifically that no individual has far greater influence than any other citizen. Further to that laws should be implemented to ensure any discussions between public companies and politicians or those who have influence beyond the voter should be made public, so the citizens at large can form their own opinions about the corporations the drive their own self serving agenda's and the politicians that listen and well as what those politicians agree too.

Re:So?

[Short Circuit]

my representative Key point: YOUR representative.

Lobbying is about influencing more than just the representative from your district and the senators from your state. Could I get a meeting with my Representative Pete Hoekstra? Possibly. Could I get a meeting with my Senator Debbie Stabenow? Maybe, if she didn't prefer to ignore her constituents. Could I get a meeting with my Senator Carl Levin? Probably not, he hasn't responded to my letters since the Democrats became the majority.

But even if I were to convince all three that we needed to make law the presence of my product in every household, Levin and Stabenow are only two Senators in one hundred, and Hoekstra is only one Representative in several hundred.

Limiting your influence to those for whom you are a voting constituent won't get you very far. That's why corporations have lobbyists.

Re:So?

[RealGrouchy]

He's not just one citizen, though...He's in charge of a company

One citizen, two "persons".

- RG>

Re:So?

[g_lightyear]

I'm sorry, but I need to call you on that.

An expert's opinion ought to be worth more than a layman's. If someone goes to congress, in an expert capacity, to discuss an issue, they are not doing so on the grounds of being your average punter - they are doing so under the auspices of fundamental expertise on the issue being raised.

That is not the same as your mom calling your Senator on the same issue. There's democracy and there's tyrrany of the majority; expertise needs to matter. The whole point of policymakers is that they're *not* the people who are experts on an issue; simply people whose job it is to find the experts on those issues and navigate a policy.

democracy

[wall0159]

It's a sad indictment of politicians that they need lobbyists to tell them what to think, rather than going out and actually talking to their constituents. Democracy is supposedly representative of the people - the skewing of this system towards serving only the wealthiest corporations is only going to take us to bad places.

Re:Lobbyist.

[garcia]

Well, we are talking about Google here, right? Let's ask them how Google defines a lobbyist and what they think are the pros and cons of lobbyists.

What better source than straight from the horse's mouth? ;-)

Google is just a regular company

[jorghis]

*gasp* Google paying out the nose for influence in Washington? Its almost like they are your standard multi billion international corporation.

Lets give it a rest already, this doesnt make Google evil. It just means that they are like any other company which is something nonfanboys have known all along. Do we need to see a headline every time a tech company hires a handful of lobbyists? What makes Google special?

Re:Google is just a regular company

[joeytmann]

What kinda flawed thinking is that? If you are going to have a holier than thou attitude, you better be holier than thou. If you are going to do the same bullshit all the major corps do, then you are a hypocrite and in my opinion just as bad, if not worse, than a "evil" company.

If you want to change the system, start with yourself and get others to follow your lead. You don't change the system by taking advantage of its flaws, you become apart of it.

Re:Here's a slashdot interview with a lobbyist...

[MilesNaismith]

Ah the concept of "corporate personhood" rears it's ugly head. You sir, are individually a constituent of your district and a voter. Your corporation is not a constituent or a voter. The rest of it is rationalizing bribery and influence peddling.

Puhleeze...

[mbstone]

OK, so lobbyists don't usually flat-out "buy" Members of Congress (although there have been lots of recent exceptions like the Duke Conningham or Freezer Dude Jefferson cases). But Members don't support bad legislation like DMCA because "they have songwriters," etc. in their districts. Lobbyists write the legislation. Lobbyists schmooze Members over free dinner or free Capitol Hill receptions or free or underpriced private jet rides. Lobbyists get their clients to give to the candidate's PAC, or have their clients' employees give, or have their clients' employees trade checks with a party campaign committee so it looks like Rep. X is getting a contribution from his or her own party committee. It's gotten to the point where Members seem to think there are no points of view other than are represented by some lobbyist. Look at phenomena such as Tech Policy Summit, an echo chamber composed of public-policy mavens from big tech corporations. Public policy is supposed to be for the public. The public interest might occasionally coincide with that of some big corporation, such as Google's stand in favor of net neutrality -- even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Tomorrow Google might merge with a telco and suddenly start lobbying in the opposite direction. Look at Sony, a company that used to lobby for fair use, then they bought a movie studio.

As for crowing about how few people "call in," do Congressmembers really believe the only calls that should count are those drummed up by lobbying organizations? I'll bet most people here on Slashdot believe calling or writing a Congressmember, on any issue, would be futile / a waste of time.

Re:Do no evil

[SoopahMan]

You're kidding me right? The mere use of lobbyists is enough for you to decide Google's an evil company?

Have a look at the blog, you can read about what those lobbyists are up to. That's a major difference. The RIAA is evil - when they were busy turning singing into an act for hire, so they could own an artist indefinitely, do you think they were blogging about their intentions and notifying the American people? No. In fact, they did everything they could to hide it so it could torpedo its way into law before it was too late.

Evil companies and organizations like the RIAA are out there buying their way into legislation that gives them an unfair lock on all sorts of things. It's a broken system that works on money. Google is paying to keep it fair - the way it should be. It sucks it takes lobbyists to do it, but Google is working to keep the very worst ideas out of Congress. Or did you think Net Neutrality would just solve itself?