Facebook, Amazon and Apple set records for annual lobbying expenses
28. Januar 2020Facebook, Amazon and Apple set records for annual lobbying expenses
New York, January 28, 2020
Mark Zuckerberg’s social media company led the so-called FAANG companies in spending aimed at influencing Washington politicians.
Facebook paid out $ 16.7 million last year, far more than that $ 12.6 million in 2018. Amazon reached $ 16.1 million in 2019 – also more than the $ 14.4 million USD in the previous year. Apple said it spent $ 7.4 million, exceeding $ 6.7 million in 2018 and $ 7.2 million in 2017.
The two other FAANG companies – Netflix Inc. NFLX and Alphabet Inc. and Google – have not set any records with their lobbying expenses for 2019. Netflix announced it had paid out $ 850,000 last year, down from $ 800,000 in 2018, but below the total of $ 1.3 million in 2015. Google released $ 11.8 million last year -Dollars, a significant drop from the $ 21.7 million total in 2018 when the search engine heavyweight reorganized its lobbying efforts.
In 2019, a series of legislative proposals for technology companies were presented at the congress that dealt with data protection, censorship, security, algorithms, children’s problems, face recognition and other topics. However, Capital Alpha Partners analysts have found that „the presence of so many different reviews makes it difficult to progress on one point“.
The Trump administration’s Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have also launched antitrust investigations into big tech.
A spokeswoman for Amazon said on Wednesday that e-commerce Titan was „always looking for ways to innovate“ for customers and the team in Washington, DC. In the US capital, employees “focus on making sure that we are committed to issues that are important to our customers, our employees and decision-makers. „
Facebook and Netflix declined to comment, while Apple and Google didn’t respond to requests for comments.