FTC Drops Investigation of Google Less Than a Week After Company Exec Hosts Obama Fundraiser

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.

• The Canadian Privacy Commissioner recently found that Google did indeed capture personal sensitive information as part of its Wi-Spying
• The British Government just re-opened their investigation into Google Wi-Spy over the weekend
• Over 35 States Attorneys General continue to investigate privacy violations related to WiSpy

But in the United States, where a top Google executive hosted a $1.8 million fundraiser in her home for President Obama last week?

Nothing.

Google’s Eric Schmidt recently said, “The average American doesn’t realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists”. He was clearly speaking from experience.

Congress must hold hearings on this FTC whitewash to put the facts on the table and find the truth.