Large Companies Continue Pumping Money Into Mass Lobbying Efforts Setting New Records With Both Google and Facebook Spending Millions on Election Donations

Google, Facebook Continue Pumping Money Into Lobbying Efforts Setting New Records, Says Consumer Watchdog

Google and Facebook continued to pump money into their Washington lobbying efforts in the third quarter with the Internet giant spending its second most amount in one quarter while the social networking company spent its most ever for one quarter.

“Google and Facebook would have you believe that they are different from other corporations,” said John M. Simpson, Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project director. “They are not. They are following the corrupt corporate tradition in Washington: buying what you want.”

Lobby disclosures filed this week with the House of Representatives showed Google spent $4.18 million, in the third quarter, a 76 percent increase from $ 2.38 million in the comparable 2011 period. For the first nine months Google’s total lobbying spending hit a record $13.1 million. Google spent $9.68 million in all of 2011.

Facebook spent nearly a million dollars, $980,000, topping the $960,000 spent the previous quarter and 172 percent above the $360,000 spent in the third quarter of 2011. For the first three quarters of the year, Facebook has spent almost $2.6 million, compared to $910,000 during the comparable 2011 period.

Other tech company lobbying in the third quarter included:

• Apple spent $460,000, the same amount as the previous year.

• Amazon spent $550,000 compared to $450,000 in the third quarter of 2011

• Microsoft spent $1.86 million, down slightly from $1.88 million in 2011.

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