So it's maybe no surprise that Google employees were the largest contributors to Barack Obama's election campaign in California and the third largest corporate donors nationally - money that was instrumental in his eventual victory, announced this morning. In fact, PC Magazine's Sascha Segan writes that Obama's victory is also Google's victory - not least because of the president-elect's open attitude towards the internet.
Let's start from the beginning: Obama has always had a strong presence on the web, a strategy that many have seen as the essence of his attraction to younger voters. Retrospectively considering Obama's campaign, Mashable points out that he outpaced his Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and John Edwards by almost 40,000 views on YouTube's political channel, YouChoose. What's more, his significant primary wins in February led to the most successful viral video in history, in which Black Eyed Peas artist will.i.am remixed his acceptance speeches.
On Google itself, Obama steadily remained a more popular search term than his Republican rival, John McCain, although the commotion surrounding the announcement of Sarah Palin as the latter's vice presidential candidate did overtake searches for the Democrat from mid-August to late September.
Although any internet-savvy voter in the US - and any American politics fiend globally - will remember 2008 as the first truly digital election, Google could well be the main beneficiary of the impending Obama presidency in the online world. In Obama's statement of his technology goals, he declares the need for "a Google-like search engine that will allow ordinary Americans to track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and loans online."
Perhaps it was this not-so-subtle nod to Google's achievements that led to Google employees donating a total of $701,099 nationally towards his campaign. It might also have something to do with the fact that Eric Schmidt - Google's CEO - was one of the Democrat's prominent technology advisers, along with two Federal Communications Commission (FCC) heads.
In essence, Obama's openness towards net neutrality and his pledge to deploy next generation broadband speed across the United States is likely to be of great benefit to the search giant. Coincidentally or not, this joint desire was given a leg up yesterday when the FCC ruled that 'white spaces', unlicensed parts of US TV airwaves, can be used to deliver broadband services - a move that's opposed by TV networks.
But there are other elements of Obama's tech policy on which Google's primary rivals, Microsoft and Yahoo!, are certain to capitalise too - namely ensuring competitive markets and safeguarding privacy. In particular, Microsoft (who donated around $714,000 to Obama's campaign) has voiced several complaints this year over the search engine's growing online presence, especially in relation to Google and Yahoo!'s paid search advertising deal.
In addition, as privacy groups continue to lambast Google and pursue their grievances in court, Obama could find himself stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to his approach to the company's increasing dominance.
How Obama's technology policies will play out as his attention is focussed on the current economic crisis, however, is yet to be seen. Right now, he's probably too busy relishing in the current president's words of wisdom: "Congratulations and go enjoy yourself."
