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Google, Apple, Amazon Hit Record Lobbying Highs (axios.com)

Posted by msmash on from the pleasing-government dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The last three months brought record-high lobbying spending from four major tech companies: Google spent $5.93 million, Apple spent $2.2 million, Amazon spent $3.21 million, Uber spent $430,000. Facebook spent $2.38 million this quarter, up from the same period last year but far from a record. Microsoft's bill for the quarter was just over $2 million.

41 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. legalized bribery? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    legalized bribery?

    1. Re:legalized bribery? by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They have to make up for choosing the 'wrong' party last election.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:legalized bribery? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      it's not money, it's speech.

    3. Re:legalized bribery? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's more like a barometer of the health of the country.
      The more money is spent on lobbying, the more ROI the industry believes that it can get for that money (secure lucrative contracts, pass anti-competitive laws, acquire land rights, and curtail competition, etc).
      Thus the amount of money for lobbying is directly related to how much power the government exerts over its serfs - er... I mean... over the free people of the lone bastion of freedom who select from among their neighbors to act as their representatives to serve as their duly elected public servants.

      While the government is capable of granting as many favors as it is, the money will continue to pour in trying to shape those decisions, no matter how many sham campaign finance reform laws the politicians pass.

    4. Re:legalized bribery? by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 1

      More like fighting back and not, as they say, "bringing a knife to a gun fight." There was a time, up through the '90s or so, when Silicon Valley wasn't much into playing the lobbying game. And it wound up hurting them fairly badly.

      Consider just one law... How much money, time, and actual engineering work do you think tech has had to waste to comply with the DMCA? I couldn't even begin to guess, myself. How much Danegeld is Google forced to pay, for its YouTube unit alone, to the copyright cartels because of the DMCA? How many tech companies were full-out put out of business? It wasn't just Napster by a damn sight. If SV had been fighting equally dirty back when the RIAA and MPAA bought the DMCA for themselves, to what more productive use could tech's wasted money and effort be put versus dealing with DMCA BS? What companies would still be in business? How many developers, SysAdmins, and the like, would not have lost jobs over the years?

      Of course, we'd all like it if lobbying went away. And if you can come up with an effective way for tech to fight back against its enemies buying laws in their favor, without going to DC and buying some laws of their own, I'm all ears. I can't really think of a way. And having the moral high ground doesn't do you a lot of good, after all, when the enemy had the legal high ground.

      --
      Imagine all the people...
    5. Re: legalized bribery? by VikingNation · · Score: 1

      DCMA cuts both ways. How much money did artists, musicians, actors, directors lose due to piracy before DCMA?

    6. Re: legalized bribery? by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 1

      Very little, I have no doubt. You are humoring the lie that a "pirated" work is a lost sale. It's not. I know this from personal experience. So...

      Confessions of a former warez kiddie:

      "Piracy" (It's not piracy, of course, no theft on the high seas is involved. But I'll indulge the cartels' weasel words.) is in no way about acquiring and actually using the content, be it software, music, or whatever. Do you think that some "pirate" who gets and cracks the latest pro version of AutoCad, for example, is actually going to use it? Of course not. I was never going to be a draftsman or mechanical engineer or the like. I was a just kid with a 28.8K modem, too much free time on my hands, too little money for a proper hobby, and the silly desire to have "elite" status on the local BBSs. That $1499 retail value copy of AutoCad was never used for more than a few doodles. It was split up into 1.44MB chunks, uploaded to a few BBSs to improve my ratio, copied off to floppies to rot in a box, and deleted when I needed room for the next thing. "Piracy" is a game, nothing more. And the way you keep score is a combination of the retail value your horde, your ratio, and your access levels on the boards. Then you graduate, get a real job, and leave it all behind.

      So no. If the copyright cartels lost any money pre-DMCA; it's a trivial sum compared to the damage they've done to the tech industry. Of this, I have zero doubt.

      And again, the DMCA is just one law that other interests have bought that has harmed tech. Still in RIAA-land, consider the continually precarious financial situation of the likes of Pandora, Spotify, and SoundCloud because tech does not have that the same protections against the cartel's price fixing and gouging that terrestrial radio does. Or consider the extortion that Netflix has suffered at the hands of Comcast, Verizon, et. al. because of the lack of net neutrality protections.

      --
      Imagine all the people...
    7. Re:legalized bribery? by solarmon · · Score: 1

      The best government money can buy.

  2. Why not just call it what it really is? by bogaboga · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The last three months brought record-high lobbying spending from four major tech companies: Google spent $5.93 million, Apple spent $2.2 million, Amazon spent $3.21 million, Uber spent $430,000. Facebook spent $2.38 million this quarter, up from the same period last year but far from a record. Microsoft's bill for the quarter was just over $2 million.

    Just call it corruption. You know why?

    It's because if any company did the same thing in the so called "3rd world", this same activity would be termed as "corruption" as part of "buying off politicians."

    Sad.

    1. Re:Why not just call it what it really is? by El+Cubano · · Score: 1

      It's because if any company did the same thing in the so called "3rd world", this same activity would be termed as "corruption" as part of "buying off politicians."

      It is more like that when they were small and challenging the establishment, people would cheer them on. Sort of like with Lyft and Uber now. However, Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft (along with others) long ago ceased to be change agents disrupting and challenging the establishment. They are the establishment. Now they are in the mode of protecting and fortifying what they have.

      If you want to eliminate corruption, elect people who don't take campaign contributions from large corporations. BTW, we did that with Obama (I know he didn't strictly refuse big donors, but he did brag about how most of his contributions can from small donations by individuals). As far as I can tell, Obama wasn't any more a "man of the people" than Bush was. Also, you are likely to have difficulty finding people who are immune to corruption; it is human nature after all.

    2. Re:Why not just call it what it really is? by Anubis+IV · · Score: 2

      You say there's corruption. If so, is the corruption in:
      A) Corporations with deep pockets engaging in crony capitalism strictly for their own benefit.

      B) A government engaging in such outlandish politics that the only way sanity gets a seat at the table is if corporations spend big on lobbying.

      C) Both

      D) Neither

      Arguably, the answer in this case may be B. Apple in particular has a record for not spending much on lobbying, particularly given their size, but the last two quarters, i.e. since Trump was elected, have been their largest quarter-over-quarter increases in lobbying dollars spent, suggesting that the things Trump is doing in the White House have demanded a response from the company. As such, is it corruption on their part for finally playing the game, or is it corruption on Trump's part for forcing them to pay up?

    3. Re:Why not just call it what it really is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      what about the citizens the government "represents", should they pay lobbyists too?
       
      They already do. Two of the top lobby groups, both in membership and in influence, are made up of millions of supporters. The AARP and the NRA both have a hand in some of these political games. I wouldn't be surprised if the ACLU is in there as well.

    4. Re:Why not just call it what it really is? by rrohbeck · · Score: 1

      It's only corruption as long as the politicians (and judges) that you paid off haven't made it legal yet. After that it's "contributions" or "financing".

      --
      thegodmovie.com - watch it
    5. Re:Why not just call it what it really is? by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      It's corruption because any money is spent or is it corruption that these particular companies spend money? It is sad that these companies have to spend this money or they are not heard. For example, the telecoms probably spent roughly $86M last year in the US Senate alone. If we extrapolate what these companies spent in the last 3 months, the telecoms will probably out spend them.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    6. Re:Why not just call it what it really is? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      Bribery doth never prosper: what's the reason?
      Why, if it prosper, none dare call it bribery.

      To misquote Sir John Harrington

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    7. Re:Why not just call it what it really is? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Why is it corruption? Lobbying your senators is hard.

      Look at me. I've written up a policy for a universal social security that cuts taxes on literally every single individual, cuts business income taxes, and cuts payroll taxes. It stabilizes OASDI (because it replaces part of it, and that proportion becomes larger over time). It stabilizes the middle-class through tough economic times, cutting back the severity and duration of recessions. It remediates a large part of the welfare system and, as a result, eliminates homelessness and hunger in the United States.

      I can describe the ins and outs of this policy; I can show how to deploy it; I can show how and why it works; I can defend every piece of it. I've drawn up transition plans, I've described how to manage it using the existing Social Security system, I've pointed out the risks in welfare and immigrant concerns and how to control them. I've described how to use this to improve and then replace HUD housing assistance, and I've described how to use the Social Security credit system to phase-in naturalized Americans so as to avoid any threat of economic parasitism.

      All the technical end, I can handle.

      Now: How do I present it?

      Never mind just getting Congress to hear me speak; what do I say? How do I engage in a Congressional dialogue with power and persuasion? Congress will ask for questions, will raise concerns, and will want follow-up if they do find any interest; how do I collect, analyze, and present the economic data?

      Do you think Congress will just listen, nod, decide that everything seems well-and-proper, and go with it? Do you think they'll even look? Maybe, with what I can do on my own, I'll be able to get their attention; tell me what you think.

      I need people. I need public attention to the issue. I need pictures, prepared speeches, graphs, charts, and videos to speak to the American People and to Congress. I need to be able to think on my feet--or to hire someone who can. I need to pull together enormous amounts of data and work with it.

      To engage the American people, I need graphics designers, programmers, video editors, marketers. To engage Congress, I may need analysts and economists, highly-skilled business negotiators, and maybe even multiple suits at once to send individually to meet with Congressmen repeatedly. I need to collect the concerns of the Congressmen, analyze them, find answers, and send my people back to them to deliver what we've found.

      Do you know how much that costs?

      Even if you can skip the public campaign, what if you have dozens of complex issues to deal with?

      Imagine how much the costs scale.

      Most of it isn't kickbacks and back-room deals. Some of it is; that's why we have a few Senators and Governors in prison. A lot of the time, the Congressman and his staff will take to reminding you that it's not their job to do weeks of research at your request; if you want their attention, you bring the data.

      Besides that, year-after-year costs will always go up with inflation, just like movie tickets. If it's a few percent, it's just inflation; if it's more, it's more lobbying activity.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    8. Re:Why not just call it what it really is? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Apple in particular has a record for not spending much on lobbying

      Microsoft also donated very little prior to 1998, when the feds initiated an anti-trust lawsuit that could have broken up the company and destroyed their monopoly pricing power. Since then, Microsoft has donated 10s of millions, and has had few legal problems despite very few behavioral changes.

      It is silly to blame corps for donating when our political system provides so much value to big donors.

  3. SCOTUS said it is legal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Money is free speech.

    The ironic thing is that if a bag of cash was dropped on the doorsteps of politicians in -any- other country from a foreign source, there would be people thrown in jail. However, it is considered completely legal here.

    1. Re:SCOTUS said it is legal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Tell me about it. In Sweden, if you are a politician and rent an apartment to a price questionably low, congratulations, you're being investigated for bribery and you're in the national news.

      If you served in the government and someone buys you dinner, you better decline or you're up for a bribe charge and end up in the national news.

      Turns out the key to efficient governing is making sure the government isn't schizophrenic (no corruption or conflicts of interest).

    2. Re:SCOTUS said it is legal by fred6666 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Money is free speech.

      Only in the USA. In more democratic countries, political donations are limited / capped.

    3. Re:SCOTUS said it is legal by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      SCOTUS said it was legal because SCOTUS itself was put in place in part via corporate influence. It's recursive, and may get worse. Yes, a "slippery slope"; they do happen.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    4. Re:SCOTUS said it is legal by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      Most people don't care when the lobbying is on 'their' side. As long as most people don't care, it will continue to happen.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    5. Re:SCOTUS said it is legal by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Gosh, you mean Sweden is superior AGAIN? Damn, is there no stopping them? Everyone needs to move there, right now. SWEDEN YES

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  4. There's an old book about that... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not a coincidence that after the U.S. Dept. of Justice filed an antitrust case, Microsoft's lobbying bill went from $0 to millions of dollars each year. See "Breaking Windows: How Bill Gates Fumbled the Future of Microsoft" by David Bank.

    1. Re:There's an old book about that... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, a 16 year old book. Very relevant. Thanks, creimer.

      A 16-year-old book that I first read when it came out, one of the first books to be written about the Microsoft antitrust case, and relevant to the current discussion.

  5. $2 million? by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    $2 million? Yeah right. The Beltway is littered with these offices. They aren't doing engineering there.

  6. Accountining Line Item.... by Zorro · · Score: 1

    Hookers and Cocaine.

    Filed under "Business Expenses."

  7. Last laugh of corporate cancerism? by shanen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Dismissing such corporate lobbying as "corruption" is far too simplistic an explanation to merit the "insightful" mod. Maybe it's just too soon for the story and better comments are yet to come, but (of course) I think it's just a reflection of the current "state of the Slashdot". Hint: The state of the Slashdot is NOT "strong, very strong".

    There is a deep issue here, but it involves the prioritization of the single metric of "money, more money" above everything else. In reality, LOTS of other things are as important or even MORE important than money, but corporate cancerism now reduces everything else to that metric. If I were forced to pick a single metric, I would probably pick time, and I certainly think time is much more important than money. From that perspective, I think the deeper solution is to dump crude economics and evolve to ekronomics, a time-based approach to assess what is actually important in life, even for the so-called lives of corporations.

    What is interesting to me about this particular story is the underlying conflict. WHY are they spending all this money?

    I think we're seeing a climatic struggle here, and the giant (EVIL) corporations are obviously in favor of today's so-called Republicans. That's because they have some agreement on their priorities. Today's GOP actively wants government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1% of the population.

    The other side of the struggle has much simpler priorities. #PresidentTweety wants government of the Donald, by the Donald, for the Donald. The corporations obviously don't like that so much, but the joke is that Trump is NOT even in the 0.1%. The hilarious secret of Trump's tax returns is that his so-called assets are just laundry fees for Putin's dirty rubles. (Gross simplification, especially in that Trump's incompetence had driven him to dirty money long before Putin became a player.)

    Government of the people, by the people, for the people? Ain't NO major player on that side. Ain't no one worrying about the country or Constitution these days. Especially on the GOP side, the priorities are just party politics, private profits, and personal power.

    So you want to invoke their oaths to defend and protect the Constitution? ROFLMAO

    --
    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    1. Re:Last laugh of corporate cancerism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think the deeper solution is to dump crude economics and evolve to ekronomics, a time-based approach to assess what is actually important in life

      Economics is about exactly that. If you think economics is about money, you don't understand the topic. Economics is the study of how scarce resources -- including time, but also including many other resources -- that have multiple competing uses, are allocated. Focusing only on time and excluding all other resources, that would be "crude economics".

    2. Re:Last laugh of corporate cancerism? by Solandri · · Score: 1

      The problem is much simpler IMHO. Do you believe in taxation without representation? Most people don't.

      Most people also believe in taxing corporations.

      Now reconcile those two positions. If you want to tax corporations, then you have to give them some form of representation in government. Since corporations can't vote, the only avenue left is lobbying and political donations. Hence lobbying is legitimized.

      IMHO we should just abolish all corporate taxes AND prohibit any type of lobbying, donations, or other form of influence on government by anyone/anything who can't vote. If a company is concerned a bill will destroy their business, they can explain it to their voting employees and customers, and they can impress upon the government why the bill is a bad idea.

      There's no tax revenue lost by abolishing corporate taxes - corporations are pass-through entities. Corporate profits become dividends which are taxed when the owners/stockholders take distributions. Likewise, corporate taxes are passed on to employees as lower wages, and customers as higher prices. The corporation itself doesn't actually make or spend any money itself. It's just a paper entity - a dotted line drawn around the set of all its employees and owners.

    3. Re:Last laugh of corporate cancerism? by shanen · · Score: 1

      Well, you sound sincere, but I think you are extremely wrong. I hope I can differ politely enough to avoid the usual uncivil results on today's Slashdot.

      Taxes are important, and corporations are actually the main beneficiaries of the good things that taxes can provide. Not to say that the current system is doing a very good job of providing those things, but that's a different problem, and abolishing taxes is just a silly idea, along the lines of the baby in the bathwater.

      It is better to think in terms of what you want to accomplish with your tax policies. I think taxation should be designed to INCREASE human freedom. In particular, I think that means tax policy should encourage competition among corporations so that we have more choices and better choices. At one level, per my sig, freedom is about the choices we can make.

      Therefore I think we should have a progressive tax on corporate profits, but it should be linked to market share. The more a company dominates some market and thereby reduces our freedom to choose alternative products or services, the taxes on that company's profits should increase. In normal cases, where there is no natural monopoly, the goal of the tax policy should be to make sure there are at least 3 to 5 meaningful choices, and I even think there should be major tax incentives for DIVIDING a giant company into sincere competitors. In the abnormal case, where there is a natural monopoly, then the higher tax rates should be used primarily for two purposes: (1) Careful regulation of the monopolist to limit abuse, and (2) research into ways to break the monopoly. You must realize that the monopolist is NEVER going to be sincere about that second one...

      Now how to get there from here? I can only wish I saw a path. Right now it looks like corporate cancerism is going to kill the host [society].

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    4. Re:Last laugh of corporate cancerism? by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 1

      ... and the giant (EVIL) corporations are obviously in favor of today's so-called Republicans. ...

      The whole D vs R debate is just to keep us distracted, don't buy in. Not unlike how BLM, bathrooms, "white privilege", etc are great distractions. The only social platform that they are really against is the 1% vs 99%. That one was actually on target and thus had to be crushed. To ensure that it doesn't get resurrected the 99% had to be fragmented, which is why post that the news went into overdrive to fragment the 99%. BLM, white privilege, athiest vs Christian vs Muslim, corner case bathroom debates - all these are highly decisive but don't matter from an economic stand point. I don't have to like other groups but unless the 99% comes together we will never see economic justice. I'm willing to work with others for economic justice that is actually widespread and not just for favored classes. I don't see a party, neither D nor R, that represents that. Show me the party that is willing to take in any race, any orientation, any religion and instead is only focused on economic improvements for the 99%. The closest thing I've seen is http://unitedslate.samaltman.c...

  8. Uber spent $430,000. by TimHunter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It never surprises me that politicians can be bought, only how cheaply.

  9. Re:They have a right!!!! by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    When was the last time you tried to donate money to your preferred politician?

    It's physically impossible for your senator to talk to every person in his/her district. However, if you find a thousand (or even a hundred) like-minded people, pool in a hundred bucks each, your senator will be extremely eager to talk to you.

    In fact, if you can get a thousand like-minded people who actually want to talk to your politician (instead of signing some kind of online poll), there is also a very good chance the politician will want to talk to you. Especially if you can speak rationally instead of emotionally.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  10. free speech isn't free by Lead+Butthead · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... and going up against the combined anti-net-neutrality speech of Comcast, AT&T, Charter, Verizon, etc. weighting in at 572 million. I say good luck, yer gonna ta needid.

    --
    ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
    1. Re:free speech isn't free by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      ... and going up against the combined anti-net-neutrality speech of Comcast, AT&T, Charter, Verizon, etc. weighting in at 572 million.

      Indeed. It is interesting that the donations of these four tech companies was emphasized, while the donations of a hundred times as much by their adversaries was not even mentioned.

    2. Re:free speech isn't free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Because that's more normal for the media industry than the tech industry. I sort of wish the tech companies would simply squash the media companies. The tech guys have billions in their bank accounts.

  11. You know, we can overturn citizens united whenever by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    It's our country, not theirs. You do know that, right? It's not even that hard to do safely. Ban donations from organizations. Set a hard cap on private donations and then make it illegal to donate to a campaign you can't vote in. Book it, done. While I'm on the subject lets do away with the Senate/House and switch to a Euro style parliament system of proportional representation. This crap where 700k folks in Wisconsin decide the fate of 7 million Californians has got to stop. And if they Rural South doesn't like it, let 'em go.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  12. Not really that much by Solandri · · Score: 1

    Compared to all lobbying. Google, Apple, and Microsoft's 2016 revenue was $390 billion, and they spent $11.34 million on lobbying, or 2.9 cents per every $1000 of their revenue.

    The pharmaceutical industry's revenue was about $446 billion, and they spent $246 million on lobbying. Or 56 cents per every $1000 of revenue. 19x more.

    The telecom industry's revenue was about $750 billion, and they spent $86 million on lobbying, or 11 cents per every $1000 of revenue. 4x more.

    The TV/movie/music industry's revenue is about $600 billion, and they spent $60 million on lobbying, or 10 cents per every $1000 of revenue. 3.4x more.

    The Internet/software industry is just realizing that if they don't want the tail wagging the dog (e.g. Hollywood dictating the laws which govern them), they're going to have to spend an equitable amount on lobbying.

  13. Cheap at ten times the price by jenningsthecat · · Score: 1

    Owning a legislature? Priceless!

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  14. This is an outrage by DulcetTone · · Score: 1

    A company as large as, and as subject to government restriction, as Uber is spending a measly $2M per year on influencing politics?

    I'm sad to see my politicians go so cheaply.

    --
    tone