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Amazon Lobbied More Government Entities Than Any Other Public US Company Last Year (fortune.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the growing-influence dept.

Amazon lobbied more government entities last year than any other public U.S. company, covering issues like healthcare, transportation, defense, and labor regulation. "Across 2018, Amazon contacted 40 different federal entities on 21 different general issue areas," reports Fortune, citing a report from Axios. "The only tech giant to lobby on more issues than Amazon was Google's Alphabet." From the report: In terms of money spent, Amazon's $14.4 million is topped only by Alphabet's $21 million, says Bloomberg. While the tech industry overall spent less than half of the $280 million from pharmaceutical and healthcare products companies in Washington, Amazon has increased spending 460% since 2012, growing quickly within its trade. According to Axios, Amazon lobbied on self-driving car and drone issues, hinting at new methods of delivery. It supported a law allowing pharmacists to tell patients when using their insurance is actually more expensive, aiding Amazon's new investment in PillPack. It also covered the labeling of bioengineered food and a pilot program allowing online shoppers to use the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program -- signs of Amazon's emerging grocery business.

4 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. richest company has the most lobbyists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    news at 11

  2. Tech learns from its mistakes. by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 2

    Tech companies engaged in hardly any lobbying back in the '90s during that tech boom. And we got screwed because of it. Established industry players, with long histories of LOTS of lobbying bought laws like the DMCA, for example. How many tech companies were wiped out by that one abuse alone? I had friends at Napster, and at two other Napster-like companies, that were put out of work by the RIAA/Metallica lobby. And the demise of one of the companies I worked for was hastened by being forced to waste engineering time and effort, and waste money to bring a lawyer onto the payroll; to deal with DMCA BS. And some of you will recall that 2001 was a BAD time for your employer to be going under.

    And that's just one of a number of laws that those entrenched interests bought that have adversely... sometimes grievously... affected tech. Yeah, it's a dirty game and it would be nice for it to go away entirely. But as long as scum like the RIAA/Metallica play it; tech really has no choice now. Bringing a knife to a gun fight seldom works out.

    --
    Imagine all the people...
  3. Re:I can't imagine by stephanruby · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why are we focusing on Amazon?

    Amazon doesn't even figure as one of the top 10 lobbyists in the United States.

    https://www.opensecrets.org/lo...

    Of course, these stats don't even take into account the Super PACs

  4. Seems like an odd metric to use by Solandri · · Score: 2

    Amazon lobbieslots of government branches because they do business in basically every jurisdiction in the U.S. in multiple industries. If you look at raw number of dollars spent lobbying, Amazon doesn't even make the top 10.