Valley fighting on Washington's terms

Net Results: When your business practices are compared to Richard Nixon's approach to personal security, you know that isn't good. And when it is a member of the US Congress stating the same to a packed government hearing: ouch.

Michigan congressman John Dingall made the most quotable quote to Hewlett-Packard executives testifying before Congress on their spying scandal last week, calling it "a plumbers' operation that would make Richard Nixon blush, were he still alive".

Other august members expressed similar levels of incredulity that this long-admired company had sunk to having investigators trail its own board members' wives to bingo halls and journalists to their children's schools, had used questionable pretences for obtaining private phone records of both journalists and board members, and considered placing fake employees in the Wall Street Journal and tech news site CNet to spy on what reporters were doing.

It sure makes the silly excesses of the dotcom era look dull by comparison - but lavish parties, jetsetting and overspending on trendy Aron chairs for the whole office don't quite equate with paranoid and possibly illegal levels of surveillance on your own board members and journalists, even if someone on the board is suspected of naughtily leaking board deliberations to the press.

Where all this will take HP and whether it will cause a consumer or business client backlash remains to be seen. The Silicon Valley take is that it will take a long time for HP to rebuild its reputation and it may never be seen in quite the same praiseworthy way as it once was, which is truly sad. A corporate reputation is hard to build - taking decades to become as solid as HP's was - but it's easy to throw away.

A board squabble seems a petty thing to let a great company founder upon and I can only imagine the vast majority of HP employees are appalled at this whole situation.

Other tech topics are also annoying Valley inhabitants at the moment, though. One that's peeving San Franciscans (not really "Valley" inhabitants but they're up on the edge of the general region) is that nothing seems to be happening with their free Wi-Fi internet network long promised by Google and partner EarthLink.

Though getting the network into the city by the Bay is a pet project of the city's dynamic mayor, Gavin Newsom, and has had plenty of nationwide publicity, Google execs went public last month with their annoyance at the city's slow bureaucracy.

Google claims the city is dragging its feet on negotiating a final contract for the project agreed five months ago, demanding free computers and a revenue share for what will be a free but advertisement-funded network.

The city, on the other hand, says it is working to get the best deal for its citizens - and that even though this may be a free lunch for users, it shouldn't be a free lunch for Google, so to speak.

Google, which has been slapped in Washington for its willingness to have its searches censored in China, is learning as Microsoft did before that you ignore wooing Washington at your corporate peril.

Just as Microsoft went from having a pre-antitrust trial with a handful of lawyers and lobbyists on Capitol Hill to what New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman referred to as "an army" of them, Google is beefing up its Washington troops.

Google has just filed papers to set up its own political action committee (Pac) in Washington - a dedicated, well-funded lobby group - and, in addition, has hired two former Republican senators, Dan Coats of Indiana and Connie Mack of Florida, to lobby on its behalf.

Google also co-sponsored (with eBay and tech industry group TechNet) a lush fundraiser at a Washington Republican club for Republican congresswoman Heather Wilson of New Mexico, whose district is under a strong challenge from Democrats.

The choice of all these Republicans is an interesting and revealing one.

In Democrat-heavy California, the youthful tech industry tends to support Democratic candidates (and, occasionally, Libertarians).

But many Republicans support the concept of "network neutrality" - a federal law that makes it difficult for cable and telephone companies to offer a tiered internet service that could enable them to charge web operators extra if their website content is delivered more quickly.

And retaining network neutrality is a big issue for Google, which doesn't want to see its searches and other services slowed if they don't pay extra to network gatekeepers.

Watching the tech companies and lobby groups in action on a state and national basis in the US makes one wonder why they remain so low key in Ireland. While industry groups such as the Irish Software Association and the Telecoms and Internet Federation (Tif) put out press releases and while they do lobby, they don't seem to have the clout or the visibility of, say, the old-style unions.

Yet they represent industries that are far more vital to the wellbeing of the State, and on many different levels - from the economy itself to businesses and consumers - than the groups the unions represent.

Likewise, most of the more high-powered Irish-based technology company executives seem to prefer - if they lobby at all - a quiet word in an ear somewhere to any overt campaigning.

Maybe it's horses for courses. On the other hand I could easily name a dozen key issues for the technology industry here that are not being addressed or remain inadequately addressed by Government.

Maybe a shift in approach and learning a bit from US counterparts would help bring more success. For far from being a mouse that isn't roaring, the tech industry in Ireland is a lion that should be roaring more often and louder.