Having escaped as a child from an oppressive government, Brin was anguished by the decision. Four years later, at Google’s annual shareholder meeting, two resolutions were introduced calling on Google to support human rights and oppose all forms of censorship in China; the resolutions implicitly rebuked Google. Page and Schmidt and Google management had the votes and defeated the resolution. Instead of vigorously opposing Google’s decision, Brin meekly abstained. When a shareholder rose to ask for an explanation, Brin gave a long tortured reply that vacillated between “I agreed with the spirit of the resolutions,” and “I am pretty proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish in China.”

Google rationalized its decision. Executives said they were complying with Chinese law, as they complied with German law to screen Nazi materials or would later comply with the government of Thailand by blocking YouTube videos that “defamed” the king. It said it was serving Chinese users, who still received more information from even a bowdlerized Google search than from any available alternative. It said that the Internet would, over time, help democratize China. And it said it would be transparent and notify users when search requests were blocked.

Google could also justifiably claim that it did not cross the line Yahoo had when, perhaps inadvertently, it shared with the Chinese government the e-mail accounts of prodemocracy journalists, resulting in long jail sentences for two journalists. But there was another reality Google confronted, and it was acknowledged in testimony made to Congress in February 2006 by Elliot Schrage, Google’s vice president, global communications and public affairs. Baidu, a Chinese search engine, had seen its market share jump from just below 3 percent in 2003 to 46 percent in 2005, he testified, while Google’s plunged to below 30 percent, and was falling. China was steering its citizens away from Google. “There is no question that, as a matter of business, we want to be active in China,” Schrage said, adding, “It would be disingenuous to say that we don’t care about that because, of course, we do.” What Schrage and Google were less transparent about was that Google had invested in Baidu, and presumably had to win the concurrence of the Chinese government in order to do so. The next year Google sold its 3 percent stake.

Perhaps for the first time, Google executives were feeling defensive, troubled that folks thought they had violated their “Don’t be evil” pledge. In the wake of China and the Google IPO, Eric Schmidt said he expanded his own job description. “It took me a while to figure out that we had to reach out to traditional media,” he said. “It’s part of acknowledging they are incumbents.” But he, like Google, was just making nice. “I’m happy to be diplomatic,” he added. “But I’m about winning!” What wasn’t clear was: Winning what? And at whose expense?

Schmidt was not diplomatic with Elinor Mills, a reporter for CNET News, a Web site that contains various online networks, including business news, technology, video games, and television programs. Mills in 2005 was working on a story about how much private information Google collected. As part of her research, she used Google search and Google Maps to run a quick search on Eric Schmidt. She located his Atherton home and address on Google Maps, his approximate net worth, political contributions, and a fair amount of other personal information. Then she published what she found, writing, “That such detailed personal information is so readily available on public Web sites makes most people uncomfortable.” It certainly made Schmidt uncomfortable.

“CNET was informed,” wrote Randall Stross, “that Google was unhappy with the use of Schmidt’s ‘private information’ in its story, and as punishment, Google as a matter of company policy would not respond to any questions or requests submitted by CNET reporters for one year.” Schmidt’s and Google’s reactions invited derision; Schmidt was accused of a “hissy fit.” Google executives tried to reason with Schmidt, to coax him to apologize, to end the ban. Months later, without offering an apology, Stross wrote that Google “quietly restored a normal working relationship with CNET.”

Google was becoming more defensive but also began to slowly worry about a potential threat far more powerful than any competitor: government. Google was alienating media companies, and when these companies speak, Washington listens. These companies are a major source of campaign funds and jobs; they provide the stage and microphone for elected officials. By 2005, broadcasters and telephone companies and others were raising questions about Google. Google may have been a multibillion dollar company, but it was unprepared to fight back. It had no political action committee; for a long time its only Washington presence was a one-man office located in suburban Maryland. This office reported to both David Drummond and Elliot Schrage in Mountain View. Drummond was supposed to oversee policy, and Schrage communications, which led to some confusion as the two often go hand in hand.

Although Google was not yet alarmed, it was on notice. At the weekly executive committee meetings, they talked about beefing up their presence in the nation’s capital. Brin volunteered to stop off in Washington to say hello to various government officials the next time he was back east visiting his parents in Maryland. But the the trip was hastily planned, as Brin admits: “Because it was the last minute, we didn’t schedule everything we wanted to.” Among the key people he didn’t get to see was Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, then the chairman of the commerce committee, with jurisdiction over the Internet. (Senator Stevens’s knowledge of the Web appeared limited. He once referred to an e-mail by saying that “an Internet was sent by my staff.”) The Washington Post depicted the poor reception as a snub of Google; it probably didn’t help matters that Brin’s outfit that day included a dark T-shirt, jeans, and silver mesh sneakers.

Brin did manage to meet with senators John McCain and Barack Obama, and the topic was “network neutrality,” an effort by Google and others to ensure that the telephone and cable companies who provide high-speed access to the Internet didn’t charge higher fees to Web sites with heavy traffic. Around the time of Brin’s visit, an organization called Hands Off the Internet, financed by telecommunications companies, ran full-page newspaper advertisements accusing Google of wanting to create a monopoly and block “new innovation”; one ad featured a grainy photograph of a Google facility housing a sinister-looking “massive server farm.” Brin saw it for the warning it was. “I certainly realized we had to think about these things, and that people were going to misrepresent us,” he said. “We should be entitled to our representation in government.”

Like Microsoft in the late nineties, the Google leadership, “composed of ideological technologists,” as Schrage put it in 2007, was slow to appreciate the political and the human dimensions of the technical decisions it made. Schrage’s resume spans a law degree, years of teaching, a senior executive position at The Gap, and work as an international consultant on corporate social responsibility. He acknowledged that Google engineers were new to the ways of Washington. “Some call that naivete. Some might criticize this; others might applaud it. No question that people here regularly discuss Microsoft’s experience and use that as a cautionary tale.”

Later, meaning to explain rather than criticize, Schrage told me, “One can make the argument that the genes of technological innovation are frequently in conflict with emotional intelligence. Successful technological innovation is all about disruption. Effective emotional intelligence is all about collaboration, how you get talented people to work together and enjoy it.”