On the plus side, the tech industry will likely rally around efforts to boost research funding, as well as initiatives for improving broadband and Internet access. But an Obama administration might also begin new battles in Congress, namely on privacy and security regulations. And those kinds of fights could pose huge risks for Google.

Google is already pushing back on the threat of regulation, especially from European lawmakers. In September, on its server logs after nine months. In doing so, the company said it is "significantly shortening our previous 18-month retention policy to address regulatory concerns and to take another step to improve privacy for our users."

But Google's effort to keep regulators at bay runs up against eight years of privacy self-regulation that has delivered a string of data breaches and identity thefts.

"We have expressed real frustration about self-regulation and in our view that policy approach did not work," said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of Electronic Privacy Information Center. He believes Congress and the Obama administration will revisit a broad range of privacy issues, including consumer privacy.

In sum, Google could easily suffer big wins and big setbacks in Washington: It could win on Net neutrality but lose on privacy.