FairSearch, the coalition of specialized search engines and Microsoft, has hired former Justice Department official and Karl Rove spokesman Mark Corallo.
The hire was first reported by POLITICO.
Corallo told POLITICO that he hopes to “bring more attention to the issue of competitiveness in the search marketplace so that the DOJ, state attorneys general and members of Congress will see the need to increase their scrutiny of Google.”
On the other side of the political aisle, FairSearch has the Glover Park Group representing it.
Corallo is a consummate Washington, DC-insider who’s also a former media handler for the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee back when it was chaired by Indiana Republican Dan Burton.
National Journal reported in 2005 that he and his then colleague Barbara Comstock were jokingly referred to as the “masters of disaster” because the committee was constantly investigating the Clinton White House on various issues.
Corallo was also a spokesman for former White House Deputy Chief Of Staff Karl Rove when he was under investigation by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. And he became a spokesman for onetime Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers’ law firm of Locke, Liddell & Sapp in 2005 after Miers’ nomination. Before that, he worked for former Attorney General John Ashcroft as the Justice Department’s press secretary and public affairs director.
In the world of technology policy, Corallo is used to being on the other side of Google.
His biography on his firm Corallo Comstock’s web site says that he represented the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, groups that are often hold opposite viewpoints to Google in disputes over intellectual property policy.
The hire appears to be part of a general ramp-up of an effort to lobby public opinion against Google. On Friday, FairSearch aired an ad that ran during Fox and Friends. The ad charged that Google’s ranking practices hurt small business.
A Google spokesman was unavailable for comment at the time of this posting.
