Google relationship with Barack Obama stretches back to 2007

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Google employees donated $1.6 million to President Barack Obama's two White House bids
The company told Daily Mail Online that it has spoken with the Federal Trade Commission about antitrust concerns; it was investigated in 2011 but later let off the hook
In the 2012 election, the company’s search algorithm customized results for Obama but not for Republican Mitt Romney
Google execs who have left to work in the White House include Obama's chief technology officer
Hillary Clinton also poached her new tech chief from Google this week

By David Martosko, Us Political Editor For Dailymail.com

Published: 19:26 GMT, 9 April 2015 | Updated: 20:35 GMT, 9 April 2015

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When President Barack Obama dined with a dozen technology business leaders in California four years ago, it was Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt who sat at the head of the table.

Obama sat on one side, between the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Facebook pioneer Mark Zuckerberg, but the place of honor was no accident.

Google executives and employees donated more than $1.6 million to Obama's two White House campaigns, and the online search giant parachuted top talent into both.

One result has been a coziness with the U.S. government's executive branch that few other companies can match – marked by access for lobbyists, mentions in nearly half of Obama's State of the Union addresses, and a personnel feeder trough serving the White House with new senior hires.

BEGINNING: In 2007 Barack Obama had an on-stage cameo with Google's then-CEO Eric Schmidt as part of a presidential candidate series

INFLUENCE: Schmidt (far left) shared the head of the table with the spouse of a venture capitalist whose firm owned 20 per cent of Google, as President Obama dined with tech leaders in 2011

There have even been allegations that Google's up-close-and-personal relationship with the West Wing earned it a reprieve from what would have been an earth-shaking Federal Trade Commission antitrust lawsuit.

Google has insisted it never received special treatment in that case, punctuating its denials with an animated GIF of a laughing baby as a jab at the news outlet that leveled the charge.

White House visitor logs suggest a different kind of story for the company whose motto is 'Don't be evil.'

Employees of the Silicon Valley behemoth have been in the White House more than 230 times since Obama took office – approximately once per week. At least 190 of those meetings were with senior officials.

More than 60 featured Google lobbyist Johanna Shelton.

Overall, according to The Wall Street Journal, Google spent $16.8 million on lobbying last year. That's four times the amount spent by Apple, whose market capitalization is twice as big.

It needed that muscle in 2011, after the FTC found Google allegedly manipulated search results in ways that favored its own for-profit products. Amazon and eBay were among the companies who complained that Google was engaging in practices that violated antitrust laws.

The Journal reviewed emails showing that Google co-founder Larry Page met directly with FTC officials in late 2012 to discuss a settlement. About the same time, White House visitor logs show, Google chairman Eric Schmidt met with Obama senior adviser Pete Rouse.

What made the list of Google's most-searched stories of 2014?

REVOLVING DOOR? Google vice president Megan Smith left her job to become Obama's chief technology officer

Lobbyist Joanna Shelton and General Counsel Kent Walker met with Jason Furman, then the newly minted chair of the president's Council of Economic Advisers. Furman followed up with a meeting with FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz.

The government closed its investigation two months after Obama won re-election.

READY FOR HILLARY: Stephanie Hannon, director of product management, civic innovation and social impact at Google, has become the Hillary Clinton campaign's top technology guru

Google agreed to change its business practices but dodged a potential 10-figure fine – and saved the cost of litigating a years-long case that could have resulted in breaking up the company into smaller, more market-competitive units.

Both Google and the FTC said at the time that there was no undue influence.

Google pilloried the Journal, which first suggested a link between the company's access and the investigation's outcome, saying the meetings its executives held with administration officials involved discussions about 'everything but' the antitrust investigation.

In a blog post, the company cited 'patent reform, STEM education, self-driving cars, mental health, advertising, Internet censorship, smart contact lenses, civic innovation, R&D, cloud computing, trade and investment, cyber security, energy efficiency and our workplace benefit policies.'

The written defense Google published took specific aim at Journal publisher Rupert Murdoch, and included an animated GIF of a laughing baby in a high chair.

But a Google spokesperson confirmed Thursday on background that company executives has talked with the FTC about unspecified antitrust concerns in the past. The spokesperson declined to be quoted or named.

Schmidt is a one-man case study of the kinds of influence a multibillionare tech titan can wield in Washington when the stars align.

LEFT-HAND MAN: Schmidt (right) got a prime seat at the table when newly minted President Obama met with a group of CEOs in February 2009

'EVANGELIST': Online pioneer Vint Cerf is Google's top 'Internet evangelist' and also a member of Obama's National Science Board

His ascent in Obama's world began in 2007 when the future president visited Google's California headquarters for a one-on-one interview, staged for the benefit of the company's employees, then 16,000 strong.

Schmidt asked him about Iran, Pakistan, and Guantanamo Bay.

'Close down Guantanamo,' Obama replied, 'restore Habeas Corpus, say no to Renditions, no to warrantless wiretaps.'

The exposure was vital: Obama ended up lapping the field in fundraising in the high-tech sector.

Obama offered Schmidt his choice of cabinet slots after the 2012 election – either Treasury or Commerce – and was even prepared to create a new 'Secretary of Business' position for him.

He declined all three but accepted a post on the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. He continues to evangelize about both his company and the president's agenda, including 'net neutrality' regulations that have big Internet service providers up in arms.

Schmidt's roots with Obama run deep. When the future president visited his campaign headquarters on Election Day in 2012, Schmidt was there overseeing final efforts to leverage 'Big Data' to nudge last-minute voters to the polls.

He was by then already a donor to Obama's White House bids, contributing the maximum amount allowed by law both times.

Schmidt's specialized software gave then-Senator Obama access to high-tech voter targeting algorithms that Republican John McCain couldn't match.

HIGH LIFE: Google Ideas director Jared Cohen co-wrote a book with Princess Beatrice of York in 2013, three years after he left the Obama State Department to work for the search giant

ELECTION KINGS: Michael Slaby (left) and Justin Vincent (right) were key architects of Obama's data-mining and voter-targeting software efforts, and both were emigres from Google

And Michael Slaby, the chief integration and innovation officer af Obama For America, the president's campaign organization came over from a job as technology strategist for TomorrowVentures – Schmidt's venture capital fund.

OFA also boasted former Google software engineer Justin Vincent as its senior codewriter, and former YouTube/Google lead Web developer Angus Durocher as its lead online software engineer.

Google itself was accused publicly of favoring Obama's 2012 re-election campaign in a more visible way.

Customized search results would appear when users typed 'Obama' into a search window, but entering 'Romney' yielded no such help.

Google claimed at the time that it was the result of a computer algorithm, not human intervention.

This week the president's new initiative linking global warming with public health includes a specific buy-in from Google.

The company, the White House says, will 'donate ten million hours of high-performance computing' and help scientists to create 'early warning capabilities' for climate change-related disasters and related risks for diseases.

Some of that work could conceivably be performed by former White House staff who have joined Google, just as the president counts several former Google executives among his advisers.

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton this week hired away a top tech talent from Google for her presidential campaign-in-waiting.

Stephanie Hannon, formerly Google's top dog on product management for 'civic engagement,' will help her navigate the digital waters in 2016.

Poaching seasoned Google veterans is a maneuver the Obama White House has perfected.

Megan Smith, a former vice president at the company, is now the administration's chief technology officer.

Angus Durocher, a computer engineer who left Google to work for the Obama campaign, tweeted this photo of himself and Vice President Joe Biden when he was at work in the campaign's New Hampshire nerve center

Google transforms streets into giant PAC MAN game

The deputy CTO position was held for Obama's first two years by another Google emigre, Andrew McLaughlin.

He left the administration in 2011 after a reprimand for sharing details of government policy matters with his former coworkers via a personal email address.

Shortly after Obama moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, former Google project manager Katie Stanton became his director of citizen participation.

Sonal Shah, a former Google global development chief, moved to Washington the same month to lead the White House Office of Social Innovation.

And Vint Cerf, a widely acknowledged 'father of the Internet,' serves on Obama's National Science Board.

Cerf has worked for Google since 2005 as a vice president and its 'chief Internet evangelist.'