Google goes to Washington

Another inauguration took place in Washington this week — Google Inc. officially became a political power player.

The executives and employees of Google Inc., whose headquarters is in Mountain View, Ca., overwhelmingly supported Obama’s candidacy. Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt is now as likely as any corporate chieftain to get his calls to the White House returned.

Its employees supported Obama, and four Googlers served on his transition team. Now the Internet giant hopes to win support for network neutrality and expanding high-speed Internet access.

In October, Google was only hours from being sued by the Justice Department as a Web-search monopolist. Today, less than three years after it made its first Washington hire, the Internet giant is poised to capitalize on its backing of President Obama and pursue its agenda in the nation’s capital. See the story here.

Google and You Tube censorship and selective enforcement has been in question for some time.  There is even a Wikipedia entry about it.

Some You Tube users are fighting back by posting some strong video protests.

First, neither side is 100 % right.  And secondly, users are very, very angry that their videos are being pulled down or muted when they contain background music owned by Warner Music.

You Tube was purchased by Google October 9, 2006 for $1.65B.

Posted:  01.25.09