White House

"House" star Kal Penn's much-heralded road from the Fox series to the White House seems to have hit a pothole, or at least taken a turn into a cul-de-sac. Since the start of the year, two senior Google (NSDQ: GOOG) executives have joined the Obama administration—and CEO Eric Schmidt has been appointed to the president’s advisory board on science and technology. Concerned in part over the company’s growing influence, two consumer groups are publicly opposing the appointment of a third Google executive to the White House.

The groups emphasize that they are not opposed to McLaughlin’s appointment solely because of his ties to Google, noting that “it would be just as inappropriate for a lobbyist from Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) or any similar technology company to be appointed Deputy Chief Technology Officer.” However, the letter mentions two antitrust investigations the Justice Department has launched against Google as well as the already prominent presence of other Google executives in the Obama administration.

In a letter to the president dated Wednesday, Consumer Watchdog and the Center for Digital Democracy call for Obama not to move forward with the appointment of Google public policy chief Andrew McLaughlin as the nation’s deputy chief technology officer. “Given ... your commitment to a new standard for ethics in government, it would be a mistake to put Google’s top global policy person in a key leadership position with critical technology decisions for the federal government,” they write.