"Over the past seven years, Google has created a remarkable partnership with the Obama White House, providing expertise, services, advice, and personnel for vital government projects.
"Precisely how much influence this buys Google isn’t always clear. But consider that over in the European Union, Google is now facing two major antitrust charges for abusing its dominance in mobile operating systems and search. By contrast, in the U.S., a strong case to sanction Google was quashed by a presidentially appointed commission.'
The Intercept teamed up with Campaign for Accountability to present two revealing data sets from that forthcoming project: one on the number of White House meetings attended by Google representatives, and the second on the revolving door between Google and the government.
No other public company approaches this degree of intimacy with government. According to an analysis of White House data, the Google lobbyist with the most White House visits, Johanna Shelton, visited 128 times, far more often than lead representatives of the other top-lobbying companies — and more than twice as often, for instance, as Microsoft’s Fred Humphries or Comcast’s David Cohen. (The accompanying chart reflects 94 Shelton visits; it excludes large gatherings such as state dinners and White House tours.)
GOOGLE DOESN’T JUST lobby the White House for favors, but collaborates with officials, effectively serving as a sort of corporate extension of government operations in the digital era....
I remember reading about all the Google visits to Osambo’s WH, and that they probably had an “unofficial” office in the West Wing. I think that the NSA and Google are “inextricably-joined” somewhere, too, along with other US Gov’t agencies. Scary stuff.
I also recall back in the late 80s & 90s, when we railed against MS and Netscape, but they were rank amateurs, compared to Google.