While the rest of America turns away from the big government stimulus spending programs of President Obama, at least one corporate executive is turning toward him to embrace his failed policies. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt did the media circuit on Sunday to embrace the continuing liberal fantasy that if we spend enough money in Washington, we will fix the economy. To Eric Schmidt and Google, the only problem with the stimulus is we didn’t spend enough.

Schmidt on the Sunday Morning Shows, denounced Washington “bickering” as the reason for what ails the economy. Of course, Schmidt is offering a straw man argument to deflect blame away from Obama’s failed record of big government spending and crony socialism.

The trillion-dollar stimulus did not fail because it was not big enough or because of partisan bickering. As you may remember, the stimulus bill was passed quickly and with little debate out of the Democrat controlled House and Senate at the time. No, the trillion-dollar stimulus failed because the ideas it represented failed. Big government spending does not create jobs or economic growth – it didn’t work for the New Deal and it didn’t work for Obama’s Raw Deal.

It is shocking, however, to see Schmidt take to the airwaves to embrace failure. Of course, this may be a strategic decision. Schmidt and Obama have been thick as thieves since Google raised over $1 million for the president’s campaign. They have been rewarded – no different that Solyndra – with government contracts and policy decision that are designed to help the company. Obama has looked out for Google and now it looks like Schmidt is returning the favor.

But rather than spit in the eye of the Tea Party, conservatives and Americans concerned about our growing debt problems, Schmidt might be better served addressing some of the issues that brought him to Washington in the first place.

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will look into a host of decisions by the company that have violated the law, the privacy of the American people and the intellectual property rights of small businesses.

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European courts brought more bad news to Google’s recent reign of error as Switzerland’s top Court ruled that Google’s Street View mapping service violated the privacy of its citizens forcing Google to blur faces and license plate numbers before putting images on the Internet. The Swiss Court stated, “the interest of the public in having a visual record and the commercial interests of the defendants in no way outweighs the rights over one’s own image.” Switzerland joins the United Kingdom, Spain and France all of whom have found that Google violated various privacy laws.

Lately, the United States has gotten into the act.  Last year, the Federal Communications Commission opened an investigation after the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a complaint asking the Commission to investigate violations of federal wiretap law and the U.S. Communications Act. Now, the FTC has launched an anti-trust probe into Google and the Senate will be holding hearings on privacy and Google’s anti-competitiveness nature when Congress returns in September.  But authorities have only begun to scratch the surface of issues relating to whether Google has lived up to its mantra of “Do No Evil.”

One thing is clear–Google’s position on privacy turns America’s long-standing view of the Constitution on its head.

In December 2009, Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, declared about privacy concerns: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines—including Google—do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.”

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Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), the chairwoman of the subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, has opened hearings on the issue of privacy and the Internet. Not surprisingly the poster child for privacy violations — Google–came up often.

Google’s policy toward individual and personal privacy of its users can be summed up by comment of their CEO Eric Schmidt who said, “Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.” Unfortunately for consumers, it appears that Google cross that line – often.

Google’s history of privacy violations is long and often appears to be part company policy. Google has admitted it collected personal information and data for three years across the globe while its cars traveled through neighborhood snapping pictures for its Street View program. The cars also collected information from Wi-Fi’s from people’s homes.

Former House Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton initially called for hearings into Google’s Wi-Fi scandal. “[Google] made fairly significant verbal assurances that they would improve their behavior but apparently that’s all they did,” Barton said. “They really didn’t change their business model and it appears to me Google had adopted a model of saying one thing in Washington and doing another in their business practices. We might need to drop the ‘G’ from Google and just call them ‘Oogle’ because of what they appear to be doing,” he said.

If the Wi-Fi incident were the only instance where Google grabbed personal information from consumers, it might be excused but there appears to be a clear pattern of apathy towards personal privacy.

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News today that the FTC is preparing to issue civil subpoenas as part of a broad anti-trust inquiry into Google’s business practices comes on the heels of a similar—and perhaps more in depth– threat from Congress.

In a letter sent to Google on June 10, the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights Senators Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Mike Lee (R-UT) requested the company provide one of their top two executives to testify at an oversight hearing exploring Google’s business practices.

But so far Google has refused and offered to send their legal counsel instead prompting the Senate subcommittee to threaten subpoenas to compel either Larry Page or Eric Schmidt to appear.

It will be interesting to see how Google responds to the FTC subpoenas. But in the case of Congress, Google’s sudden interest in privacy is irony at its best.

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Sources have told the Chicago Tribune that Google’s Eric Schmidt was seen dining with Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign manager Jim Messina at Café Spiaggia in Chicago last week providing further evidence of Google incestuous relationship with the Administration.

Democratic sources told the Tribune that the dinner was “part of the Obama team wooing and coordinating with the tech world.”  In the case of Google, we are confident it was more about coordinating than wooing.

Google and the president are well beyond the wooing stage of a relationship. Schmidt has been named a potential nominee to fill the vacated Secretary of Commerce position.  Such a nomination would cement Google’s influence over the Administration – a relationship that has put the company in a position to steer policy and taxpayer funded contracts back into the pockets of Google executives who have funded the president since his initial foray into the presidential arena in 2007.

In 2008, Politico detailed the relationship between the newly elected president and the company.  “’ From the staff attorney all the way up the line, everybody now knows that Google is close to Obama,’” Politico reported. “And that could subtly affect the policy playing field in Google’s favor.”  Subtly was an understatement.

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From AFP:

An upcoming book about Google claims that Eric Schmidt, who is to step down next week as chief executive, once asked for information about a political donation he made to be removed from the Internet giant’s search engine, The New York Times reported Friday.

The Times said Schmidt’s request is recounted in “In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives,” a book by technology journalist Steven Levy which is to appear in stores on April 12.

The Times said Levy spent three years reporting inside the company to write the book, a copy of which was obtained by the Times.

According to the book, Schmidt’s request was rejected as unacceptable by Sheryl Sandberg, who served as Google’s vice president of global online sales and operations for six years before leaving in March 2008 for Facebook.

Google announced in January that Schmidt would be replaced as chief executive on April 4 by Google co-founder Larry Page.

Read the whole thing here. This goes to the heart of something that’s been a bit of a nagging concern for civil libertarians. Namely, that Google could or would somehow “game” their search engine results for its own ends. According to this account, the company denied the request, but that its CEO would even think of it is cause for concern.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the Obama Administration’s view of business — it publically treats corporations with distain while privately promoting crony capitalism helping their favorite corporations with bailouts and subsidies. GM, Chrysler, Citibank, Goldman Sachs and any company trying to make an electric car, solar panel or wind farm. But by far Google is their favorite crony. As Rep. Darrell Issa, the incoming Chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee, plans his oversight hearing schedule, the incestuous relationship between the $22 billion corporate behemoth and the Obama White House should be worthy of some Mr. Issa’s worthy oversight agenda.

It’s no secret that Google was one of corporate America’s biggest Obama backers donating over $800,000 to his presidential campaign. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt actively promoted his candidacy and helped pay for the Obama inauguration.

And what has Google got for its “investment” and relationship in the Administration? In Washington, there is an old saying – “Personnel equals policy.” In the case of Google, it’s clear the tail is wagging the dog. Former Google policy maker Andrew McLaughlin, was named White House deputy chief technology officer in June where he’ll be in a position to shape policy that affects Google’s rivals creating a disadvantage for Google’s competitors.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

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Yesterday, the White House blog asked “as special interest billionaires continued to pour secret donations of millions of dollars each into front groups supporting Republicans, we asked the obvious question: “What do they expect in return?“”   They added, “Congressional Republicans have made clear that lobbyists have a seat at the table even when they are formulating their party’s broader strategy and governing vision.”

People in glass White Houses shouldn’t throw stones.

• “Google’s Marissa Mayer is hosting President Obama for a Democratic party fundraiser tonight. Tickets are $30,000-a-head….” – San Francisco Chronicle, October 21, 2010

• “After analyzing the unencrypted WiFi payload data captured by its Street View cars, Google now admits that the system captured entire e-mails, URLs and even user passwords.” - ZDNet, October 23, 2010

• “The Federal Trade Commission [has] closed its investigation into Google’s collection of consumer data through its Street View cars….”  San Francisco Chronicle, October 27, 2010

The FTC decision is a classic DC whitewash, but it a pattern for this administration which has repeatedly given Google “get out of jail free” cards, no-bid contracts and undisclosed lobbying and business access to top administration officials.  And when Big Government exposed the administration coordinating privately with Google, what happened?

Nothing.

That isn’t true everywhere.

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On Monday, Google and Verizon—two of the nation’s biggest companies operating in the tech space—announced a compromise joint proposal on Internet regulation that has tech policy observers buzzing.

The proposal, discussed during a conference call featuring Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, represents a substantial softening of Google’s position on controversial net neutrality proposals, say several tech policy observers.

Notably, while enshrining non-discrimination rules with regard to what is often referred to as “traditional Internet broadband service,” the proposal also allows broadband providers to offer what are known as “differentiated services,” such as Verizon’s FiOS service, which need not be neutral.  This is being interpreted in some quarters as a major shift on Google’s part.

The company took fire yesterday from Free Press, a pro-net neutrality group that some tech policy experts have speculated for years took money from Google to finance its advocacy efforts, which helped promote an approach that observers say could, if adopted and enforced, have benefited the corporation substantially.  In a statement, Free Press adviser Joel Kelsey remarked that “If codified, this arrangement will lead to toll booths on the information superhighway.”

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Just how far is the Obama administration willing to go to reward big donors?  In the wake of yesterday’s explosive report regarding “scores of top Democratic donors” being rewarded with “VIP access to the White House, private briefings with administration advisers and invitations to important speeches and town-hall meetings,” it’s a question that’s on the minds of many politically-engaged Americans, and one likely to grab yet more attention, thanks to this article in today’s USA Today.  It notes that: 

“More than 40% of President Obama’s top-level fundraisers have secured posts in his administration, from key executive branch jobs to diplomatic postings in countries such as France, Spain and the Bahamas, a USA TODAY analysis finds.”

 USA Today goes on to report that one top-level fundraiser apparently awarded with a plum job is Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski. 

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