Dangerous Liaisons Between Silicon Valley and Washington

From the White House to… Facebook: According to information from The New York Times, Robert Gibbs, Barack Obama’s former press secretary, is in talks with the social network Facebook, which is trying to recruit him.

Responsible for press relations during the 2008 campaign, Mr. Gibbs naturally became the White House press secretary after Obama’s victory, a position he left two months ago to work on the 2012 campaign of the U.S. president.

But Facebook also foresees a busy year in 2012: The company is set to enter the shares market and communications will be crucial, as the social network is increasingly the target of critics concerning its policy on privacy or its economic model. Even if the professional qualities of Robert Gibbs have not yet been proven, Facebook would also benefit in hiring this fine connoisseur of the internal workings of the Democratic Party at a time when Congress and the White House are considering channeling greater efforts toward the secondary share market, a measure that is primarily aimed at Facebook. Democratic senators are also increasingly interested in the social network’s practices in terms of personal information management.

Again according to The New York Times, Mr. Gibbs is said to have been approached by other enterprises in the new technologies sector. Additionally, the name of Eric Schmidt, who is to leave his current position as chairman of Google, has been put forward in Washington as a possible candidate for the position of commerce secretary. Jeffrey Kindler, the former CEO of Pfizer Laboratories, is also among the contenders, as are the president of computer security company Symantec and the director of the Federal Communication Commission, the regulator of telecommunications.

The choice of a cabinet member from the sector of new technologies would be the latest of a long series of signals sent by the Obama administration to Silicon Valley. In February, Barack Obama brought together at a special dinner some of the most influential business leaders of the Internet: Larry Ellison (Oracle), Eric Schmidt, Steve Jobs (Apple), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder) and Carol Bartz (Yahoo!). Officially, the president had invited these representatives of Silicon Valley to talk about his policies in favor of small enterprises and higher education. But he also detailed a key objective of his policies, which aims at doubling U.S. exports within five years, which the future commerce secretary will be responsible for.

With the 2012 campaign drawing near, Barack Obama is not forgetting either that Silicon Valley is an important financing source. In 2008, he was the preferred candidate in the world of start-up companies. Directors like Eric Schmidt and Bill Gates (Microsoft, whose headquarters are located in the state of Washington) made personal donations to the Democratic candidate.

Financial stakes

Marked winks from the Obama administration to the world of new technologies are not making everyone happy. Many states have already started to target modern businesses in full growth, whose financial policies are suspicious. States like Texas, however disinclined to tax businesses, have asked Amazon to make sales tax payments. The online retail giant refused to comply and instead relocated its expedition centers, hardly disguised as a move of employment blackmail. In San Francisco, Twitter has finally obtained an exemption from payroll tax after it threatened to relocate its headquarters to a nearby suburb.

In particular, consumers’ associations, which are very critical toward the giants of the sector, threaten an electoral but also diplomatic sanction. Consumer Watchdog, an influential consumers’ association very critical of the practices of Google in general and of Eric Schmidt in particular, has sent an open letter to President Obama asking him to not appoint Mr. Schmidt as commerce secretary.

“Mr. Schmidt’s appointment would send the wrong signal to the world about our commercial intentions. Exporting technology is not the same as exploitation of personal data on a global basis,” declared the association, reminding that it is the duty of the commerce secretary to manage privacy policies. Putting Eric Schmidt in this position would be “like appointing Bernie Madoff to direct the Securities Exchange Commission,” said Consumer Watchdog.