FTC Attorney Joins Microsoft

inode_buddha writes "Randall Long, a senior attorney who led several antitrust investigations against Google, has been hired by Microsoft. From the article: 'The software giant told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that it hired Randall Long, an official at the FTC's Bureau of Competition. When he joins the software giant at the end of the month, Long will head up Microsoft's regulatory affairs division in Washington. Long was involved in FTC reviews of Google's acquisitions of both DoubleClick and AdMob. According to the Journal's unnamed sources, Long was especially outspoken about Google's AdMob acquisition, saying that the FTC should challenge the deal. His reservations were eventually set aside and the deal was approved in 2010.'"

Comments

Re:Graft

[unreadepitaph]

They just don't even try to hide it anymore, do they.

Re:Graft

[icebike]

Well the US is not one of those places. People are pretty much free to quit one job and take another. Joining government might be harder.

In fact the only place I'm aware of an outright ban is France, where a three year waiting period must lapse before quitting government and joining the private sector. How one feeds himself and is family during this three years is not explained.

Other jurisdictions may impose restrictions via NDAs, and there are rules about defense contractor hiring, but only into specific jobs (procurement specialists can't join sales teams upon leaving government).

Besides... He's a lawyer.
Anything he did for the FTC is Attorney Client privileged, and we know Attorneys never violate that now don't we?. *cough*.

Re:Job over?

[phrostie]

I suspect he's been working for M$ for a while now.

it's just official now.

Revolving Door

[Taco Cowboy]

It's another case of revolving door - where a senior government officer getting a high ranking position in the private sector the minute he quit his government job

I'm afraid that in a civil society like what we have, we can't do nothing to this form of corruption

Re:First post!

[hairyfeet]

The sad part to me is they don't even try to be subtle about it anymore, a corp will hire some elected official to shill and then give them a cushy job when they manage to get what they wanted. this is why my two boys refuse to even vote as they see no point in participating what is now obviously a completely corrupted system and with crap like this occurring daily frankly there isn't a single thing I can think of to use as a counterargument. From the local to the national its all nepotism and cronyism and bribery, revolving doors and backroom deals.

I have to wonder if this is how it ends, just one slimy roll downhill as the corps and politicians steal as much as they can before bailing when it all falls down like the fall of Saigon.