To fight this threat, Google turned to a key third-party validator: academia, and in particular one university with a long history as an advocate for corporate interests.

From the beginning of the FTC investigation through the end of 2013, Google gave George Mason University’s Law and Economics Center (LEC) $762,000 in donations, confirmed by cancelled checks obtained in a public records request. In exchange, the LEC issued numerous studies supporting Google’s position that they committed no legal violations, and hosted conferences on the same issues where Google representatives suggested speakers and invitees.

A professor at George Mason and author of many pro-Google studies, Joshua Wright, even later became an FTC Commissioner. He had to vow to recuse himself from Google-related matters for two years to deflect concerns about conflict of interest. But before Wright’s confirmation, the FTC already decided against filing charges against Google, overriding its own staff’s recommendations. Google only had to voluntarily agree to alter some of its business practices to resolve the case.

Google’s actions between 2011 and 2013 show how they dodge legal bullets: by molding elite opinion, using the support of experts and academics as a firewall against criticism. The donations to George Mason and professors at other universities reveal that Google purchases that privilege.

It’s just one way Google uses its war chest to influence policymakers: they spent $5.47 million on official lobbying in the first quarter of 2015 alone, and spends more money on lobbying than any public company. But the academic funding machine may be even more insidious, a stealth form of lobbying wrapped in the guise of “independent” research. Google has not responded to multiple requests for comment at the time of publication.

The first check to George Mason University’s Law and Economic Center came on June 8, 2011, the same month as the FTC probe was confirmed.

The $25,000 donation went to “support the Attorneys General Education Program,” a division of the LEC that “provides a common forum” for education and public policy issues affecting state law enforcement agencies. The program’s Advisory Board at the time of the donation included sitting Attorneys General from Virginia, Maryland, New Mexico, Missouri, Washington, Colorado and Indiana. Google faced state investigations into their business practices from Texas, New York, California, Ohio, Mississippi and Oklahoma at the time the donation was made.

John Burchett, Director of Public Policy for Google, confirmed the check delivery in a lugubrious email to the executive director of the LEC, Henry Butler.

Future donations went to more broadly support the LEC, an institution founded in 1974 to offer conferences and programs for judges. In 2010, it expanded its offerings to state attorneys general and Congressional staff. It acts as a conduit between the academic community and policymakers, providing expertise at no cost to explicitly “impact policy solutions.”

Having those solutions interact with corporate wish lists is nothing new for the university. In the 1990s, George Mason economics professor Robert Tollison created a committee that produced paid research for the tobacco industry, casting doubt on the dangers of second-hand smoke and the effectiveness of higher cigarette taxes.

Google discloses its support for the LEC, but does not state specific funding levels. Similarly, George Mason lists Google among its corporate donors – which include cigarette giant Altria, the American Bankers Association, oil companies ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil, weapons manufacturer Raytheon and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (But they do not disclose the total funding numbers publicly.) Despite multiple requests, George Mason declined to comment for this story.

The $762,000 in Google funding over a two-and-a-half-year stretch represents a significant chunk of the LEC’s total budget, which they list as $5 million in 2011 and $6.5 million in 2013. Checks ranged between $25,000 and $180,000.

In November 2011, future FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright, then still a law professor at George Mason, wrote “Defining and Measuring Search Bias: Some Preliminary Evidence,” where he discounted Google’s “alleged bias” toward its own subsidiaries in searches.

“From an antitrust perspective,” Wright wrote, “differences in own-content references across engines fail to indicate consumer harm,” but instead “imply the existence of intense competition among engines.” This is one of over 70 PowerPoint presentations and white papers featuring Google that can be found at the LEC website, most of which align with the company’s policy preferences.