[bestbits] FW: Google, once disdainful of lobbying, now a master of Washington influence

[michael gurstein]

Google, once disdainful of lobbying, now a master of Washington influence

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-google-is-transforming-power-and-
politicsgoogle-once-disdainful-of-lobbying-now-a-master-of-washington-influe
nce/2014/04/12/51648b92-b4d3-11e3-8cb6-284052554d74_story.html?hpid=z1

http://tinyurl.com/plr76oe

In May 2012, the law school at George Mason University hosted a forum billed
as a "vibrant discussion" about Internet search competition. Many of the
major players in the field were there - regulators from the Federal Trade
Commission, federal and state prosecutors, top congressional staffers.

What the guests had not been told was that the day-long academic conference
was in large part the work of Google, which maneuvered behind the scenes
with GMU's Law & Economics Center to put on the event. At the time, the
company was under FTC investigation over concerns about the dominance of its
famed search engine, a case that threatened Google's core business.

.......

The behind-the-scenes machinations demonstrate how Google - once a lobbying
weakling - has come to master a new method of operating in modern-day
Washington, where spending on traditional lobbying is rivaled by other, less
visible forms of influence.

That system includes financing sympathetic research at universities and
think tanks, investing in nonprofit advocacy groups across the political
spectrum and funding pro-business coalitions cast as public-interest
projects.