Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Eric Schmidt informally advises the Obama campaign with regards to technology and energy issues. But if Barack Obama becomes the 44th President of the United States, will the Google CEO be his Government pick for the new role of Chief Technology Officer?
The big political news over the weekend has been the endorsement of Barack Obama from the unlikely direction of Republican former Chief of
Staff and Secretary of State, Colin Powell. However, the bigger news
for those with an interest in both IT and politics involves Google CEO
Eric Schmidt.
Schmidt has already been known to informally advise the
Obama campaign team on issues involving technology and energy, but now
the Google Head Honcho is making it clear that he also backs the
Democratic Presidential candidate while at the same time stressing this
is not Google policy but his own personal choice.
The Wall Street Journal reports that while
Schmidt has not made any donations to either presidential campaign,
Google employees certainly favour Obama.
Indeed, the newspaper reckons that Google employees have contributed a
total of USD $487,355 to the Obama campaign, compared to a trifling USD
$20,600 for McCain. The fact that Obama gets the backing of a 'Google
guy' is certainly not something that can be overlooked.
Obama will be happy with the tech clout of Schmidt in his camp,
particularly as John McCain already has former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and
Cisco CEO John Chambers advising him. Two questions , however, spring
to mind as a result of the Schmidt decision, and his hitting the
campaign trail this week on behalf of Obama.
The first being whether this will be interpreted as an effort to gain
influence regarding such issues surrounding both Net Neutrality and
personally targeted online advertising which are currently being
considered by Congress. With Google increasingly sitting centre stage
when it comes to regulatory scrutiny.
It is known, for example, that the tech savvy Obama is a supporter of Net
Neutrality having co-sponsored legislation some years ago. A stance
shared by Google, and opposed by the 'leave it to the market' opinion
of McCain.
The second question is whether Schmidt is jockeying for position,
specifically the position of Chief Technology Officer within an Obama
Government should he, as looks likely, win the Presidential election?
The Wall Street Journal quotes Schmidt as denying any desire to enter
the world of politics, saying "I'm actually very busy running Google."
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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