Watchdog: Exposing the Google, Obama Administration Employee Pipeline

The administration of President Barack Obama and Google have enjoyed each other's companies, as 258 employees have changed jobs between the two since Obama took office in 2009, Watchdog.org reported.

Though many of those would be considered low-level jobs, consider that 31 former Google executives took jobs at the White House or federal advisory boards, and 15 from the tech giant or its lobbying firms ended up at regulatory agencies FCC or FTC, Watchdog.org reported.

And 22 former White House officials ended up at Google, according to Watchdog.org.

Either direction raises red flags at those levels.

"If they have access to information on competitors and they go to Google … then you have to wonder if Google is getting an unfair advantage over others in their market," Scott Amey, general counsel for Project on Government Oversight, told Watchdog.org.

Watchdog.org surfaced revolving doors between other federal agencies and Google:

• 25 officials in the federal intelligence field went to work at Google;
• 3 Google execs went to work at the Department of Defense;
• 18 former State Department officials went to Google; 5 went from Google to State;
• At least 18 former Google employees worked at one time at the U.S. Digital Service.

Watchdog.org reports that in 2012, an FTC attorney took a job as Google Senior Policy counsel. Months later, the FTC would settle with Google in its antitrust probe, ruling the tech giant did not manipulate search results for its own benefit.

Meanwhile, the European Commission is poised to hit Google with a record fine over the same issue, Watchdog.org reported.

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