Inside Google

This past quarter, Google spent $1.34 million on Washington lobbyists, an increase of 41% over last year’s spending during the same period. That brings the company’s lobbying money up to $2.72 million for the first half of 2010, according to Consumer Watchdog. With all that spending, who and what is Google trying to influence?

Santa Monica, CA — Consumer Watchdog today praised a group of 37 state attorneys general for seeking to get to the bottom of the Google Wi-Spy scandal and reiterated its call for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to hold hearings on the issue.

WASHINGTON, DC — Google spent $1.34 million trying to influence federal lawmakers and regulators in the second quarter of 2010, a 41 percent increase over $950,000 in the same period a year ago, Consumer Watchdog said today. Besides its willingness to spend, a key to Google’s lobbying effort is its well-connected Washington staff, most of whom have worked for Congress or the executive branch, said the nonpartisan, nonprofit public interest group.

Google’s plans to create a social media service are taking shape with word that the search giant has invested more than $100 million in Zynga, maker of popular online games available on Facebook

Consumer Watchdog has said that the Energy and Commerce Committee really must conduct hearings into Google privacy violations, with information coming to light about Google’s classified contracts with the US government.

The House Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on Information Policy has reversed itself and invited John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog to testify at Thursday’s hearing on federal agencies’ use of Web 2.0 technologies. The invitation to Simpson is dated Tuesday, one day after a subcommittee staff member informed Republican lawmakers that the hearing would feature only one panel of all government witnesses. Simpson is the lead advocate on Consumer Watchdog’s Google Privacy and Accountability Project and has been a harsh critic of the search giant in the past. He was also the only witness requested by Republican lawmakers.

The Washington Post’s Top Secret America investigation about the vast scale and scope of U.S. government top-secret work, published this week, has revealed some troubling alliances with giant corporations to potentially spy on individual citizens. The Post identified 1,931 companies engaged in top-secret work for the government, including search giant Google. Citing revelations from the Post’s report, the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, is petitioning Congress to look examine whether Google’s Wi-Fi spying may be tied to Google’s government contracts.

Internet service providers cite e-mails between onetime Google executive Andrew McLaughlin, who now works for the White House, and his former colleagues as the FCC prepares to rewrite the rules governing broadband. John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog said the e-mails suggested that Google, an Internet behemoth with $23.7 billion in annual revenue, had too cozy of a relationship with the White House.

SANTA MONICA, CA — Citing new information about Google’s classified government contracts and the Internet giant’s admitted Wi-Spying activity, Consumer Watchdog today said it is more imperative than ever for the Energy and Commerce Committee to conduct hearings into possible privacy violations by Google.