Microsoft's Political Lobbying Record

pierreduFwench writes "With the U.S. national elections just around the corner, you may find this interesting: Opensecrets.org, a website focusing on 'Responsive Politics' recently published lobbying and donations info for the 2002 elections (to date). You can see the breakdown of Microsoft's individual dossier here. Also, looking at the 'Top Donations by Industry', you may notice that Microsoft is, conspicuously, the only entry under 'Computers/Internet.'" Very interesting graphs.

Comments

Interesting...

[dogas]

I like how all this lobbying started right about when the anti-trust suits started rolling in. Hell, they even set up a "Washington lobbying office". It seems that it might have worked, considering no one really knows what their 'punishment', if any, is.

Re:Interesting...

[dattaway]

In America, you can buy your freedom. Someone I was related to was a dumbass for using his chemistry degree to set up a nice drug lab. He was caught, because of his antisocial antics disturbed his neighbors and they called the help of the EPA, which called the FBI, which called the DEA, which called state marshalls...

His lawyer stated it would cost him $40,000 to guarantee him his freedom. Interestingly, one of his "partners" happened to be a judges son, who got off free. Since my uncle didn't have a defense fund, he is now thankfully serving time and is not using his abilities to further stockpile his toxic waste dump (I'm not sure why it takes *boxes* of different cyanide compounds to manufacture E.)

My own experience with lawyers many years ago was getting out of 5 nice speeding tickets in one year. $1055 for combined legal costs to maintain my perfect driving record. I would learn from my misdeads others would spend money to work the legal system for their vices. I feel ashamed for my experience, but I learned this is a true way of life for others.

Under the table?

[umStefa]

IF microsoft is spending 3 million in 2002 on contributions, how much are they spending on unreported little perks (a notebook to "try out" for a couple of years, fully functional "demo" copy of software, etc)?

And the winner is...

[meta-monkey]

I'm surprised that MS was the focus of this story. According to the website, other computer companies donated more than MS did. Yeah, MS was the only one under "Computers/Internet," but AOL Time Warner is on there under "TV/Movies/Music." AT&T, Bellsouth, Verizon...they're also internet providers, and all four of those companies gave more than MS did.

MS clocked in with $9.5M, where AOL spent $12M, and AT&T clocked in with a whopping $17.5M!! Man, I wish they'd lobby me for something...

Note the change in party loyalty

[sam_handelman]

A decade ago, Chairman Bill was minor league, but decidedly democratic, by a 3:1 margin. This was back when Big Blue was the great enemy, and Microsoft wrote cool Mac software (oh, yeah, and DOS.)

As his power base has grown, and as he has become more entrenched and established, he has increasingly favored the Republicans. Of course, the decision of the Clinton white house to trustbust him can't have helped.

This came up during HDTV standards debates

[harlows_monkeys]

I remember years ago there was a big flap in the computer press about how the leading candidates for HDTV standards that the FCC was considering would not work well with computers.

The reason for this was that the broadcasters and the TV manufacturers and pretty much everyone else remotely interested in HDTV standards had tons of lobbyists working full time to push their interests, except for companies in the computer industry. A couple computer companies had a couple of part-time lobbyists working on this, or something pathetic like that.

Microsoft is not doing something bad here. The ones doing something bad are all the other companies that should be on that list but aren't.

Top recipient: Jay Inslee

[jukal]

According the site Jay Inslee has got most from MSFT, total of $237,400 - nice money already. He is one of the persons behind the "Internet Radio Fairness Act" - "designed to make the copyright royalty arbitration process more fair for smaller entities." What else has he been involved with?

No, government power is out of control

[Crag]

The corporations have no police or armies of their own to speak of (thankfully), and any power they have is given to them by a government which is available to the highest bidder(s). If that government didn't have the kind of power it does, the corporations would have to create their own force, which would alienate their customers.

It's a myth that the US government holds back the corporations and forces them to play fair. For at least a hundred years it has done the opposite. The only times it every does anything right is when some wealthy person or group pays it to.

Unfortunately, there is no graceful way to change this situation. Try to change the government and the corporations work against us. Try to change the corporations and the government works against us. It will come to a head this century.

Re:Sadly its a rational move for MS

[Odinson]

I wonder why they didn't lobby the hell out of government at the time, and if they did, why did they lose the battle against anti-trust legislation?"

They did lobby and won most battles, just not all.. The side effect was for our economy to gear up for a very deep cleansing cycle. We call it the great depression.

Capitalism in a democracy (or republic) can operate with only so much overhead (corruption) and then it cleanses itself. This happens every sixty years or so. The greater the corruption, the deeper the recession/depression. Every single MSFT or AOL or PMs lobbying successes equals a larger failure country wide. Eventually (any remotely) economic law will be total spegetti code and we will need an FDR to fix it.

Lets hope the voting public realises this before they vote/relect any candidate without strict views on campain finance. Soft money may be gone after this election, but the election process is far from fair.

Other major corporate donors

[leonbev]

Microsoft isn't the only major corporation that has been funneling money to political organizations. Looking at the top 100 list, you'll see a lot of companies with "questionable" ethics that "donate" even larger sums of money than Microsoft:

5 Philip Morris $18,951,671
12 AT&T $17,464,374
18 Citigroup Inc $14,762,646
19 United Parcel Service $14,621,284
21 Goldman Sachs $13,665,527
26 AOL Time Warner $12,195,822
28 FedEx Corp $11,555,286
29 BellSouth Corp $10,838,209
30 SBC Communications $10,695,349
31 Verizon Communications $10,255,052
33 RJR Nabisco/RJ Reynolds Tobacco $10,079,162
34 Ernst & Young $9,967,638
35 Lockheed Martin $9,862,899
36 JP Morgan Chase & Co $9,861,326
40 Microsoft Corp $9,468,287

OT: Noelle Bush was caught with crack!

[maynard]

No, she wasn't just snorting coke. In fact, she was caught hiding a rock of crack cocaine, by staff at a drug treatment center, at which she was a patient. For this she received a ten day jail sentence. It should be noted that the evidence of her possessing crack was thrown out of court on a technicality, on the presumption that staff members of a medical treatment center should not be compelled to testify given confidentiality rules. However, some staff members had already publicly admitted finding the crack to journalists, so the facts had already become public knowledge.

Given that Ms. Bush has a long history of drug abuse, it's astonishing that the matter wasn't pursued further. Except for her family connections. Further proof that if you're rich or powerful criminal law simply doesn't apply.
--M

Re:corporate power is out of control

[plague3106]

Capitalism isn't the right way to run a government though. People that make the most money get to determine the laws and rights of others? I don't thinks so.