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Time to Lobbyist up: Google hires 12 Lobbying firms to defend against FTC

The Hill reports that Google will hire 12 different Lobbying firms to help “tell its story” to the FTC.  The list reads:

Akin, Gump; Bingham; Capitol Legislative Strategies; Chesapeake Group; Crossroads Strategies; Gephardt Group; Holland & Knight; Normandy Group; Prime Policy; The First Group; The Madison Group; and the Raben Group.

Google faces a range of inquiries into its business practices.

Apart from its search practices, Google has drawn criticism from lawmakers on copyright enforcement, with some stakeholders accusing the search giant of profiting off ads placed on sites that host pirated content. Google’s Android smartphone platform has also been the target of accusations that the phones track and store user location data. Google has denied those accusations and testified that its phones do not track users.

Google has refused to make Eric Schmidt or Larry Page available to lawmakers who seek to question the executives, instead offering up Chief Council David C. Drummond.  The next move by Congress could be a subpoena for the Google bosses to testify.

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