Going back the last decade, companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook have taken a back seat to big spending to influence legislation.
Those days are over.
In 2015, Amazon increased its spending on lobbying activities by a jaw dropping 91%. A good portion of that spend was dedicated to fighting the Federal Aviation Administration on the commercial use of drones.
While Amazon could have brought down the hammer and killed the proposed rules by the FAA, lobbyists on the money battle to pad their own pockets and carved out exemptions for Amazon . . . creating a long-term revenue stream for their lobby firm.
That’s just how it’s done in Washington . . . profits over client interests.
Here’s the rundown on spending in 2015 by big tech:
- Google: $16.6 million, a tiny decrease of 1% from 2014 spending.
Facebook: $9.85 million, a five percent lift over the previous year.
Microsoft: Mr. Softy increased spending by two percent with $8.49 million
Amazon: Doubling down, the online retailer spent $9.07 million on the Washington Cartel
Cisco: With a whopping 174% increase over 2014, Cisco spent $2.69 million
Yahoo: One of the last living dinosaurs of the dot com boom spent $2.84 million
Given the spending, politicians will tend to cozy up to the companies dropping the biggest bucks on the lobby class in Washington, which swings the door wide open to even more collusion between the technology we use every day and the bureaucrats in Washington that we despise.