Obama's day at Google

by John McCormick

FREMONT, Calif. -- Sen. Barack Obama will be the latest presidential candidate to visit Google headquarters when he stops by later today to speak to employees.

In advance of the visit to the search engine giant, his campaign released the Illinois Democrat's "innovation agenda" this morning, after providing some details in advance to the San Jose Mercury News.

The newspaper, in the heart of Silicon Valley, also reported today that several well-known local figures are expected to announce their support for Obama's plan, including two former FCC chairmen under President Clinton: Stanford University legal expert Larry Lessig and John Roos, chief executive of Palo Alto law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

“We need to make sure that the next success story – the next Google – happens here in America," Obama is expected to tell Google employees outside Charlie's Cafe, one of the many delicious free-food-for-employees restaurants at the company's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. "The Google story is about what can be achieved when we cultivate new ideas and keep the playing field level for new businesses."

Obama is pledging to appoint the nation's first "Chief Technology Officer," a position he sees as being charged with ensuring that more government documents and meetings are available online.

He will also reaffirm his support for so-called net neutrality, a policy that would prevent companies that provide the data lines that are the Internet from charging companies like Google extra for faster data transfers.

Besides visiting Google, Obama is also attending several fundraisers in the Bay Area, including a small-dollar "Countdown to Change" rally this evening in San Francisco that is expected to draw thousands.

A copy of Obama's full innovation proposal is linked here. The Tribune's four-part series on Google published in 2006 is linked here.