“It seems that policymaking and regulatory activity in Washington, D.C. affect Google and our users more every day,” reads Google’s official blog site. “It’s important to be involved. So we’ve opened up a shop there. Our mission in Washington boils down to this: Defend the Internet as a free and open platform for information, communication and innovation.”
Alan Davidson, a well-known Internet law expert and former associate director at the Center for Democracy and Technology will head the office. Davidson most recently lobbied for Google when he met with Sen. Joe Barton (R-Texas), who has been trying to rewrite the country’s Telecom Bill in a way that would enable Internet service providers to choose what content is sent over their networks.
The exact location of the new office was not released.
“Our primary interest is to preserve the highly successful, open, end-to-end nature of the Internet,” Davidson said. “We have been promoting network neutrality to ensure our users can access whatever content or applications they want, and that broadband carriers can't unfairly discriminate against those who use competing services.”
Google has been rapidly expanding its services of late beyond mere Web searching. Aside from its new blog search engine, the company has also launched a video hosting service, its own RSS reader, plans to join the electronic payment industry and even talk of entering the telecom market.
Davidson denied, however, that the company had established a D.C. presence to make its growth more manageable.
“There are a wide range of issues that affect our users related to a number of our services,” he said.