Google considerably elevated its lobbying expenditures final yr, spending $9.6 million, based on filings.
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Google, Amazon, and Meta spent tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying Congress final yr because the tech behemoths got here underneath growing scrutiny from antitrust regulators and lawmakers on each side of the aisle.
Google’s dad or mum firm Alphabet Inc. boosted spending on lobbyists by 27.5% final yr to $9.6 million, based on filings.
Meta Platforms Inc., which operates Fb and Instagram, spent an all-time file of $20.1 million on lobbyists whereas e-commerce retailer Amazon spent round $20.3 million.
Each Meta and Amazon elevated their lobbying expenditures by 7% in comparison with 2020.
Apple, however, spent much less cash to foyer Washington final yr. The iPhone producer’s lobbying expenditures from 2021 reached $6.5 million – down from $6.7 million.
All 4 corporations have come underneath criticism for allegedly utilizing anti-competitive practices to cement their dominance.
Microsoft, which lately introduced it will be buying online game maker Activision-Blizzard, spent $10.2 million on lobbying in 2021 — across the identical quantity it spent the earlier yr.
The specter of anti-monopoly laws aimed on the tech corporations prompted Alphabet boss Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner to personally foyer members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote towards the American Innovation and Selection On-line Act.
Cook dinner and Pichai argued that the invoice would weaken American tech corporations and provides their overseas opponents like these in China a bonus.
Their efforts had been unsuccessful, because the committee voted to advance the laws, which targets the biggest corporations primarily based on market valuation and person base.
" class="wp-image-20919628"/>Google requested a New York federal decide on Friday to throw out most of what it claimed was an “inaccurate and inflammatory” antirust swimsuit introduced by Texas and 14 different states over the tech big’s internet advertising practices.
The Texas swimsuit — which was first filed in December 2020 and been up to date twice since then — claims that Google illegally muscled opponents out of the internet advertising market and even struck a backroom cope with Mark Zuckerberg to give Meta’s Fb a profitable leg up in on-line advert auctions.
Earlier this month, a decide allowed the Federal Commerce Fee to pursue an antitrust lawsuit towards Meta, which is accused of monopolizing social media.
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