"Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one," company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin said when they announced the innovative IPO auction almost two years ago. Yet they are employing the same tactics that corporate behemoths use to influence legislation--hiring lobbyists and spreading around campaign cash.

Read David Donnelly's op-ed in CNET.com (also posted below) on how Google is playing politics as usual in our nation’s capitol.

Google is setting up a lobbying operation in Washington and collecting lobbyists and public relations consultants faster than, well, you can search for links to "Jack Abramoff."

Even while they are newcomers to Washington, they have apparently learned the lessons of the K Street Project -- the Republican effort to force businesses to hire only Republican lobbyists and to make donations to GOP candidates and committees, and to fill the major lobbying firms with Republican staffers from Capitol Hill.