How tangled is corporate lobbying these days? One of the lawyers representing Google Inc. in its $3.1 billion deal for DoubleClick Inc., Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck's Makan Delrahim, last year was retained by Microsoft Corp. to work on patent reform issues before the U.S. Supreme Court, according to federal lobbyist disclosure forms. The software giant, you might remember, is pressing the government to block Google from buying DoubleClick and is now siccing its own D.C. lobbyist, law firm Patton Boggs LLP, on the deal.

But wait, there's more. Before returning to private practice, Delrahim, a former deputy assistant attorney general for antitrust in the Justice Department, once served on something called the Antitrust Modernization Commission. Another member of that panel was Patton Boggs attorney Jonathan Yarowsky, who is now working for Microsoft to sink the Google-DoubleClick deal.

But wait, there's more. Another of Google's outside lobbyists bending fingers on the DoubleClick deal is Anthony Podesta of the Podesta Group, according to the Washington Post. Public records show that Podesta used to run interference for Viacom Inc., the entertainment giant, currently suing Google over alleged copyright infringement.

No evidence appears to link Delrahim, Yarowsky, Podesta, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Larry Page or Sumner Redstone to Kevin Bacon. —Alain Sherter

See story from Forbes.com
See July 2004 story from TheDeal.com
See June 20 story from WashingtonPost.com

Tags: google, microsoft, search