Oracle says it has donated to secretive anti-Google research effort

Oracle is one of the funders of an opaque research project looking into Google’s relationship with the White House, the company told Fortune on Friday.

Ken Glueck, an Oracle policy executive, told the magazine that the company “is absolutely a contributor (one of many) to” the project. He said the public benefits from the information relayed by the effort and noted that it has drawn on public records to do its work.

{mosads}The effort, dubbed the Google Transparency Project, is part of the larger Campaign for Accountability and has drawn some media attention since it launched earlier this year.

Research produced by the project has examined meetings with White House staffers and Google, the revolving door between the tech company and the extended world of the Obama administration and included emails showing Google’s lobbying efforts in more detail.

The campaign also produced a report on Google’s funding of policy researchers. For months, however, the Campaign for Accountability has declined to say who is funding its own efforts. Deputy Director Daniel Stevens reiterated that the group does not disclose its sources of funding in a statement Friday.

“We work on a wide variety of projects, and the Google Transparency Project is just one of our many initiatives that exposes corporate influence in Washington,” he said. “This project is in line with CfA’s mission to expose corporate influence in Washington.”

Asked why the group won’t talk about its donors, Stevens declined to comment further.

An Oracle spokesperson confirmed the company’s funding of the project to The Hill.

Oracle has long been at odds with Google over charges that the search giant inappropriately used its intellectual property while developing the Android smartphone operating system. A trial recently ended with a victory for Google, but the legal wrangling over the case continues.

Google declined to comment on Fortune’s story.

– Last updated at 2:40 p.m. on August 20.