I have some sympathy with the politicians here. The internet is new, and there aren't many people who understand it. Because it's new, poeple are still learning who's biased in what direction and why. So it's very hard to get a handle on who's selling you a pup, who's relatively disinterested and who hasn't got a fucking clue as to what they're talking about.
Even if we hadn't so professionalised politics that it was even shorter of industry expertise than usual, the modern internet industry is still pretty new anyway - so there's not been that much time for people to filter through from industry into politics and semi-retired esablishment grandee status.
What this means is that a lot of the normal sources of information aren't available. So who do you talk to?
As sceptical as I am of Google you have to admire them for their forward planning. And their willingness to invest in the future. Some of it is probably luck, but as Gary Player (almost) said, the more I invest, the luckier I get. So sure they created Android to keep them competitive in mobile search. But then they also spent big on mapping, and that combined with all those Android mobile data reporting stations phones out there gives them a massive hoard of wonderful data. So they've got a network giving them real-time traffic information, a constantly update WiFi map of the world linked to GPS, local search data, data on physical movement of people - and all of this feeds back into improving search and advertising.
If you want to talk to someone who understands the internet, you can't go wrong in talking to Google. Of course you have to assess their biases. But their far-sightedness also translated into paying academia, think-tanks and NGOs - so that they'd have lots of 'grass-roots' support. And it took a while for anyone to notice.
Of course, there is a downside to all this. And I wonder if Google are far-sighted enough to see it. Becoming 'all powerful' is great. Until people notice. Then they start to get worried. And if you don't show some moderation to go with all that power you've accumulated - people can become hostile. And then you discover that you're not all-powerful after all. Government can be pushed around and manipulated, often quite easily. But when push-comes-to-shove they've got the guns, the law and the right to print money.