Google Spent Millions More Than its Rivals Lobbying Politicians Last Year

love them or hate them, our high-tech leaders are in bed with politicians more than we know.

time.com

Google (now part of parent company Alphabet) spent over $18 million lobbying politicians in 2017

Facebook spent $11.5 million on lobbying activities in 2017

Amazon spent over $12.8 million

Microsoft spent $8.5 million

Apple spent $7 million. 

That's a heap of money. It's no wonder these companies get away with not paying their share of taxes and politicians letting them keep their billions overseas. There's the swamp of corrupt elected officials and then there's the swamp of corrupt corporations. Why is it okay for this kind of money to be thrown at law makers?

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised but I'm actually outraged. I don't care what side of the political fence anyone is on, we should all be pissed off enough about this as citizens. It's time for a mass boycott of the tech giants.

I haven't used facebook in almost two years. My browser default search engine is DuckDuckGo. My laptop now runs Linux. Unfortunately, my tablet runs Android and don't have anything to replace it with.

a reply to: LogicalGraphitti

If you look at those as investments, it makes more sense.

If you doubt, it's not difficult to find sources that these companies have government contracts and of course they want to keep them coming.

originally posted by: JinMI
a reply to: LogicalGraphitti

If you look at those as investments, it makes more sense.

If you doubt, it's not difficult to find sources that these companies have government contracts and of course they want to keep them coming.

Ya, but what I suspect is this money to buy favors that aren't in the best interest of the citizenry. I can't imagine any good coming from this. I can imagine that these companies (and many others) budget this kind of political spending to ensure they can operate "under the radar". They probably consider this as part of the cost of doing business.

I see it as extortion by politicians. If they don't donate, they'll be investigated and fined. The EU has been extorting money from Microsoft and Google for years.

a reply to: LogicalGraphitti

They are also getting big contracts. This lobbying money isn't just going to protecting them from taxation on their data monetization.

Here is the crooks manifesto. It has what was spent and to whom. It'll also spell out what is WRONG w/American Politics™




www.opensecrets.org...


A whole bunch of folks SHOULD feel ashamed and dirty but they'll just run again and if not elected become a Lobbyist themself.

Indeed a racket!!!