7 ms·

Google Spends Record Amount on Lobbying

45 points by libraryatnight 15y ago

iscrewyou 15y ago
Paywalled.
rollypolly 15y ago
Very good TAL show on this subject: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/461/take-the-money-and-run-for-office http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/461/t...
optymizer 15y ago
so is this more like bribing politicians or more like paying the bad guys to be left alone?
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  Isn't that the same thing really, even if it ends up benefiting us? I consider all money-based lobbying as bribe. Just because they made it legal, doesn't mean it's right.
  - akozak 15y ago
    Can you elaborate on what you mean by "money-based lobbying"?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
mattmaroon 15y ago
Some good will come of this I think. Much of what Google would want to lobby for, the rest of us in software would. Industries that make a fraction of what software does spend so much more on lobbying and reap the benefits, its absurd that software companies have not followed suit. I certainly am not naive enough to think all of Google's aims will be noble here, but I suspect they'll be closer to it than Apple or Microsoft.
- EricDeb 15y ago
  Strongly agree
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  I think this is true, but some of the stuff that annoys Google (like California's labor laws) they might want to change in a way that you and I would disagree with. So it is nice to have someone more technologically astute lobbying the Government, but their perspective as the 800lb gorilla with data 'issues' might incline them more toward a 'responsible use of data collected across products' rather than 'customers must be informed and opt-in prior to any data use' type policies. Back in the way back times when crytpo code was considered a munition, I was participating in efforts to convince the Clinton Whitehouse that it was impractical to impede US companies from putting strong encryption into their products which Italian companies had the same tools at their fingertips as we did. One of the unsung heroes of that time is John Gage, who probably had a lot of trips back and forth to D.C. What I found discouraging is that for every well motivated suggestion, we would get a couple of less savory people jumping on board because it enabled some of their activities. Very, very challenging to propose laws or regulations that bad actors can't turn to their advantage some how. Depressing really.
ajross 15y ago
It's a record for Google, and a comparatively high amount for a tech company. But $5M certainly isn't a notable lobbying expense in Washington.
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  >But $5M certainly isn't a notable lobbying expense in Washington Do you have a reference for that? Ars seems to say the opposite: >From January to March of this year, Google spent over $5 million on lobbying, nearly matching its entire 2010 lobbying budget of $5.2 million. If the company maintains this pace, it will likely earn itself a spot as one of the top ten spending entities for the year as logged by Open Secrets. Comparing this same rate with 2011 figures, Google would outspend the entire tobacco industry ($17.07 million), the combined spending of JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup ($18.67 million), but would be just barely behind the combined budgets of pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Merck ($20.685 million). For comparison, Apple spent only $500,000 for the same 2012 quarter; Microsoft spent $1.79 million.
  - ajross 15y ago
    Weren't you just responding to me in another thread earlier today warning about the dangers of extrapolating single data points? They didn't do this last year, why would you expect them to next year? Lobbying expenses (presumably directed primarily at SOPA in this case) are bursty. If there's no legilation on the docket that you care about, you don't pay your lobbyists to do anything.
  - ajross 15y ago
    I had time to look some of this up. Those numbers are pretty spun. Here's the list of the biggest spenders at Open Secrets: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2011&indexType=s http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2011&i... The bottom of the list (#20) is at $12M. I don't know where $5 would put you but it's no doubt in the long tail; it doesn't even register.
    - cooldeal 15y ago
Jonanin 15y ago
Apparently I've read my limit of 10 free articles per month. Is this article anywhere else?
- philipithomas 15y ago
  I think you can see it if you are referred via social media, so . . . tweet it and click the link, or search for the title on twitter and click the link. (I could post a link to my own tweet of the story, but I feel it would come off as more self-serving than altruistic.)
- luser001 15y ago
  This works for me whenever I'm blocked: http://euri.ca/2011/03/get-around-new-york-times-20-article-limit/ http://euri.ca/2011/03/get-around-new-york-times-20-article-...
- pushtheenvelope 15y ago
  For any NYT article, you can remove the part of the URL after the "?" and that should show the story to you.
- libraryatnight 15y ago
  I've been refreshing and stopping the page load before the paywall loads. It works well, for now :)
- R_Symtex_II 15y ago
  http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/23/google-lobbying-triples-q1/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/23/google-lobbying-triples-q1... Alt. link.
- vellum 15y ago
  You can use Firefox's Private Browsing mode or Chrome Incognito mode if you've used up your 10 articles.
magicalist 15y ago
Notably the Ars Technica article[1] dug up a CNN article[2] from January saying that $4 million of that $5 million was just on SOPA/PIPA. In any case, the Public Knowledge guy is right. You can't set the expectation that good guys (which might not include google for you) don't participate in the broken system and also expect good things to happen. Just like with software patents. (actually, lobbying may be a really good use of the reported increased revenue Mozilla is now receiving, though it may be difficult for their more distributed decision making process to advocate on more controversial topics. On many open web important issues, though, I would trust them to have a clear voice and do honest lobbying, and a few million should be easily covered by that increase). [1] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/04/google-on-track-to-outspend-banks-big-tobacco-in-lobbying.ars http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/04/google-on-track-... [2] http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/25/technology/sopa_pipa_lobby/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/25/technology/sopa_pipa_lobby/i...
crazy1van 15y ago
Google is realizing what so many other companies have discovered -- when you grow large enough to get on the government radar, the government can have huge effects on a business. Consider this -- what will affect Google's bottom line more tweaking their ad algorithms to slightly increase efficiency or legislation outlawing targeting ads based on specific user behavior? How about slightly better search results or anti-trust action because of their search "monopoly"? A slightly better Android OS or patent lawsuits that cause royalties be paid on every single phone sold? By and large companies invest in actions that most affect the bottom line. A dollar spent on lobbying is a dollar not spent on R&D, operations, support, HR, etc. When you see any company doing a lot of lobbying instead of developing better products and services, there is a reason.
- ok_craig 15y ago
  When you see a company spending a relatively minuscule amount of money on lobbying compared to R&D, operations, support, HR, etc, what does that mean?
Liddell 15y ago
Does anyone think Google is lobbying for its self driving car? So far only Nevada has gotten on board with the technology.
rsanchez1 15y ago
Remember, Google does no evil. Some of that money was spent on defeating SOPA/PIPA.
spoiledtechie 15y ago
Maybe Sergey Brin knows something we don't know and they are trying to stop it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/15/web-freedom-threat-google-brin http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/15/web-freedom...

Paywalled.

Very good TAL show on this subject: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/461/take-the-money-and-run-for-office http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/461/t...

optymizer 15y ago

so is this more like bribing politicians or more like paying the bad guys to be left alone?

nextparadigms 15y ago
Isn't that the same thing really, even if it ends up benefiting us? I consider all money-based lobbying as bribe. Just because they made it legal, doesn't mean it's right.
- akozak 15y ago
  Can you elaborate on what you mean by "money-based lobbying"?
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

mattmaroon 15y ago

Some good will come of this I think. Much of what Google would want to lobby for, the rest of us in software would. Industries that make a fraction of what software does spend so much more on lobbying and reap the benefits, its absurd that software companies have not followed suit. I certainly am not naive enough to think all of Google's aims will be noble here, but I suspect they'll be closer to it than Apple or Microsoft.

EricDeb 15y ago
Strongly agree
ChuckMcM 15y ago
I think this is true, but some of the stuff that annoys Google (like California's labor laws) they might want to change in a way that you and I would disagree with. So it is nice to have someone more technologically astute lobbying the Government, but their perspective as the 800lb gorilla with data 'issues' might incline them more toward a 'responsible use of data collected across products' rather than 'customers must be informed and opt-in prior to any data use' type policies. Back in the way back times when crytpo code was considered a munition, I was participating in efforts to convince the Clinton Whitehouse that it was impractical to impede US companies from putting strong encryption into their products which Italian companies had the same tools at their fingertips as we did. One of the unsung heroes of that time is John Gage, who probably had a lot of trips back and forth to D.C. What I found discouraging is that for every well motivated suggestion, we would get a couple of less savory people jumping on board because it enabled some of their activities. Very, very challenging to propose laws or regulations that bad actors can't turn to their advantage some how. Depressing really.

ajross 15y ago

It's a record for Google, and a comparatively high amount for a tech company. But $5M certainly isn't a notable lobbying expense in Washington.

recoiledsnake 15y ago
>But $5M certainly isn't a notable lobbying expense in Washington Do you have a reference for that? Ars seems to say the opposite: >From January to March of this year, Google spent over $5 million on lobbying, nearly matching its entire 2010 lobbying budget of $5.2 million. If the company maintains this pace, it will likely earn itself a spot as one of the top ten spending entities for the year as logged by Open Secrets. Comparing this same rate with 2011 figures, Google would outspend the entire tobacco industry ($17.07 million), the combined spending of JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup ($18.67 million), but would be just barely behind the combined budgets of pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Merck ($20.685 million). For comparison, Apple spent only $500,000 for the same 2012 quarter; Microsoft spent $1.79 million.
- ajross 15y ago
  Weren't you just responding to me in another thread earlier today warning about the dangers of extrapolating single data points? They didn't do this last year, why would you expect them to next year? Lobbying expenses (presumably directed primarily at SOPA in this case) are bursty. If there's no legilation on the docket that you care about, you don't pay your lobbyists to do anything.
- ajross 15y ago
  I had time to look some of this up. Those numbers are pretty spun. Here's the list of the biggest spenders at Open Secrets: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2011&indexType=s http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2011&i... The bottom of the list (#20) is at $12M. I don't know where $5 would put you but it's no doubt in the long tail; it doesn't even register.
  - cooldeal 15y ago

Jonanin 15y ago

Apparently I've read my limit of 10 free articles per month. Is this article anywhere else?

philipithomas 15y ago
I think you can see it if you are referred via social media, so . . . tweet it and click the link, or search for the title on twitter and click the link. (I could post a link to my own tweet of the story, but I feel it would come off as more self-serving than altruistic.)
luser001 15y ago
This works for me whenever I'm blocked: http://euri.ca/2011/03/get-around-new-york-times-20-article-limit/ http://euri.ca/2011/03/get-around-new-york-times-20-article-...
pushtheenvelope 15y ago
For any NYT article, you can remove the part of the URL after the "?" and that should show the story to you.
libraryatnight 15y ago
I've been refreshing and stopping the page load before the paywall loads. It works well, for now :)
R_Symtex_II 15y ago
http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/23/google-lobbying-triples-q1/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/23/google-lobbying-triples-q1... Alt. link.
vellum 15y ago
You can use Firefox's Private Browsing mode or Chrome Incognito mode if you've used up your 10 articles.

magicalist 15y ago

Notably the Ars Technica article[1] dug up a CNN article[2] from January saying that $4 million of that $5 million was just on SOPA/PIPA. In any case, the Public Knowledge guy is right. You can't set the expectation that good guys (which might not include google for you) don't participate in the broken system and also expect good things to happen. Just like with software patents. (actually, lobbying may be a really good use of the reported increased revenue Mozilla is now receiving, though it may be difficult for their more distributed decision making process to advocate on more controversial topics. On many open web important issues, though, I would trust them to have a clear voice and do honest lobbying, and a few million should be easily covered by that increase). [1] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/04/google-on-track-to-outspend-banks-big-tobacco-in-lobbying.ars http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/04/google-on-track-... [2] http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/25/technology/sopa_pipa_lobby/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/25/technology/sopa_pipa_lobby/i...

crazy1van 15y ago

Google is realizing what so many other companies have discovered -- when you grow large enough to get on the government radar, the government can have huge effects on a business. Consider this -- what will affect Google's bottom line more tweaking their ad algorithms to slightly increase efficiency or legislation outlawing targeting ads based on specific user behavior? How about slightly better search results or anti-trust action because of their search "monopoly"? A slightly better Android OS or patent lawsuits that cause royalties be paid on every single phone sold? By and large companies invest in actions that most affect the bottom line. A dollar spent on lobbying is a dollar not spent on R&D, operations, support, HR, etc. When you see any company doing a lot of lobbying instead of developing better products and services, there is a reason.

ok_craig 15y ago
When you see a company spending a relatively minuscule amount of money on lobbying compared to R&D, operations, support, HR, etc, what does that mean?

Liddell 15y ago

Does anyone think Google is lobbying for its self driving car? So far only Nevada has gotten on board with the technology.

rsanchez1 15y ago

Remember, Google does no evil. Some of that money was spent on defeating SOPA/PIPA.

spoiledtechie 15y ago

Maybe Sergey Brin knows something we don't know and they are trying to stop it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/15/web-freedom-threat-google-brin http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/15/web-freedom...