Google tries its hand at influence in Washington

When someone as influential as Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV requests your presence at a hearing, Washington insiders know it's more of a summons than an invitation. So for two hours on the morning of April 29, Microsoft, Facebook, the Federal Trade Commission, and experts from academia, think tanks and privacy groups dutifully came to answer questions about children's online privacy. But another invitee, Google, the biggest online company of all, was a no-show.

Over the past year, Google's critics have expressed concern about the company's growing influence in Washington -- its close ties to the Obama administration and the millions it spends on lobbying. Last week, the nation's deputy chief technology officer, Andrew McLaughlin, was reprimanded for continuing to e-mail with his former Google colleagues about issues related to his White House duties. On the ground in the nation's capital, though, Google's reputation is more that of a scatterbrained graduate student than of a political operative.