Microsoft Hosts ‘Screw Google’ Meetings?
Microsoft’s top lobbyist in Washington, D.C., convenes weekly meetings with outside consultants and hired public-relations people to devise strategies to undermine Google, according to the AOL site DailyFinance. These meetings have become known inside the beltway as “screw Google” meetings.
The meetings are designed to gain leverage in the regulatory, legal and public-relations arenas. The story relies on unnamed sources — always a red flag in journalism circles — but it also says one source “requested anonymity to avoid retribution.”
In the story, Ginny Terzano, Microsoft’s Washington spokesperson, says Microsoft is trying to sell the Microsoft-Yahoo deal to regulators and, of course, Google comes up in those discussions. She called any reference to them as “screw Google” meetings “absurd.”
In a separate post, DailyFinance points to more traditional lines of attack: Former Yahoo search guru Qi Lu, now leading the charge for Microsoft. He’s profiled in a New York Times story.