Meet Mark Penn, the former Clinton electioneer behind Microsoft’s anti-Google campaign

There’s a good reason that Microsoft’s recent anti-Google efforts — including an admonition not to get “scroogled” by Google Shopping — feel like political attack ads: the team behind them is led by former pollster and longtime campaign advisor Mark Penn. Penn, who worked for both Bill and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns, joined Microsoft in mid-2012 as a senior vice president for “strategic and special projects.” The New York Times has profiled Penn, who came to Microsoft as the company was starting one of its most aggressive publicity pushes in recent years. “If any of our competitors say things about us that we don’t think are true, we’re not going to sit on the sidelines,” says Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw. “We’re going to pop them.”