Think tanks are basically lobbyist/pr firms in disguise. While I am not necessarily disagreeing with your main point, I don't think this particular incident is all that controversial. When companies hire lobbyists, they expect them to represent their interests. Same goes for think tanks.
Especially one that's shown a willingness to try to silence narratives that are against its corporate interests:
http://www.businessinsider.com/new-america-fires-antitrust-r...:
> Barry Lynn, formerly the director of the antitrust-focused Open Markets program at New America, charged Wednesday that Google pressured the think tank to fire him and drop his program after he wrote a statement in June praising European regulators for fining the search giant $2.7 billion for abusing its market power. In that statement, Lynn said Google's "market power is one of the most most critical challenges for competition policymakers in the world today."
> After Lynn published the statement, Eric Schmidt, chairman of Alphabet, Google's parent company, contacted New America, and "communicated his displeasure," Lynn told the New York Times on Wednesday.
> "Google is very aggressive in throwing its money around Washington and Brussels, and then pulling the strings," Lynn told the Times. "People are so afraid of Google now."