Google lobbies Congress for a 'free' internet

Google's lobbying office in Washington is likely to be busy

Google has opened a lobbying office in the US capital of Washington in a bid to extend its influence in America's corridors of power.

The search firm claimed that the move is about protecting freedom on the internet.

"Our mission in Washington boils down to this: defend the internet as a free and open platform for information, communication and innovation," Andrew McLaughlin, a senior policy counsel at Google, said on the company's internal blog.

The lobbying office is likely to be busy. The US Congress is currently rewriting America's telecoms laws, and Google has come under attack for its plans to copy text from millions of library books, and on issues of privacy relating to how it stores personal search data.

Others claim that Google's PageRank indexing system should be made more public.

Google has also recently ventured into the world of VoIP telephony, something that is likely to bring it into increasing conflict with telecoms operators. This situation has not been helped by the search firm's decision to offer free Wi-Fi to San Francisco residents.

Google has already courted controversy in the lobbying world. The firm considered hiring Dan Senor, the former spokesman to the US Provisional Authority in Iraq. It changed its mind after criticism from some bloggers, according to The Washington Post.

The latest addition to the lobby team is Alan Davidson, previous associate director of the Centre for Democracy in Technology, a pressure group promoting civil liberties and human rights on the internet.

Two years ago the launch of Google's web-based email service was criticised by privacy groups because its revenue is based on searching the content of emails to post relevant advertising next to email messages.

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