Google hire lobby firm behind the Al Gore YouTube Fraud

googleBoingBoing is reporting today that Google have appointed controversial Washington-based lobying and 'astroturffing' firm DCI to represent them in the US. DCI, run by Republican Party officials, came into public controversy earlier in the year when the Washington Post revealed it had pretended to be a 29 year old basement filmmaker to post a YouTube video attacking Al Gore and his film An Inconvenient Truth, released this week in the UK.

Al Gore's Penguin Army

(from Wikipedia) Al Gore's Penguin Army is a video spoofing An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary film about Al Gore's efforts to raise awareness of global warming. The video appeared on YouTube.com, where it was claimed to have been an amateur production by a 29-year old in Beverly Hills, California. Controversy emerged when the source of the video replied to inquiries made by the Wall Street Journal, which determined that "computer routing information" showed that those replies came from "a computer registered to DCI Group", a public relations and lobbying firm in Washington, DCI, led exclusively by Republican party officials. DCI has counted corporations such as General Motors and ExxonMobil amongst its clients.  

The Wall Street Journal consulted a professor of communications who described the spoof as "'Propaganda 101.' It contains no factual information, but presents a highly negative image" of the former vice president." When asked if they created the video, DCI Group responded "We do not disclose the names of our clients, nor do we discuss the work we do on behalf of our clients." Another source also found that sponsored links to the Al Gore video had been placed on Google, and were taken down after it was reported, noting that the identity of the party who paid for the sponsored links remained unknown.