To a lot of people ‘lobbying’ immediately elicits many negative connotations. And in some cases, there is probably some basis to that. However, from a company’s perspective, lobbying is a necessary evil. As lobbying is designed in nature to affect decisions made, it is an industry where companies and groups are going to want to invest in. In fact, it seems to be an industry which is increasingly becoming more financially-backed. And just like many tech companies, Google is no exception. So much so that for the last year they seemed to have recorded the highest level of expenditure for lobbying of all the tech companies. At least for lobbying in the U.S.
Data revealed recently by Statista shows exactly how much the top lobbying tech companies spent in 2015. At the very top of the pile is Google who are said to have spent in the region of $16.66 million. Following which, second place was Facebook who spent $9.85 million, which is considerable less than Google in spite of being in second place. Third place was taken by Amazon who are said to have spent $9.07 million and were quickly followed by Microsoft with $8.49 million. Apple came in fifth with $4.48 million and surprising, Netflix spent $1.32 million on lobbying on 2015.
It is worth pointing out that in the grand scale of things $16.66 million is not a lot of money compared to what Google could throw at lobbying if they wanted. However, it does highlight that Google is sustaining in its approach to lobbying. Back in early 2015, it was noted that Google had spent $5.5 million in the first quarter of the year and if the overall total now noted is correct, then it does seem that was one of the bigger quarters as it accounted for almost third of the yearly figure quoted. It is also worth pointing out that early last year, Google was noted to have spent about $16.8 million in 2014 on lobbying and so in reality, they did not seem to increase on that figure year over year. What’s more, is that the $16.8 million figure was said to represent ninth on the overall list (including non-tech companies) for 2014 and so by any means, Google is not the leading force is lobbying, just maybe, in the tech sector.