[ad_1]
US tech giants have spent record lobbings in 2018, according to corporate revelations released Tuesday by the Federal Elections Commission.
Google led the pack by spending $ 21 million, up from $ 18 million in 2017. The company has lobbied on a wide range of issues, including copyright and patent reform, privacy protection , cybersecurity, education, commerce, health, immigration, diversity of workplaces, political spectrum, network neutrality, autonomous vehicles and tax reform.
Amazon spent $ 14 million lobbying many of the same issues, while Facebook spent nearly $ 13 million. Microsoft spent $ 9.5 million and Apple, $ 6 million.
All these expenses were made at a time when technology companies are besieged from left to right. Right-wing people are wary of the left-wing business culture in most major technology companies, and particularly worried about how Facebook and Google might use their control over major social media platforms to silence the conservative viewpoints.
Meanwhile, leftist critics have begun to sound the alarm over the growing power of these companies on the market. In 2017, a major criticism of Google was sacked from the think-tank New America, center-left. He then created the Open Markets Institute, which is committed to advocating for tighter enforcement of antitrust laws against large technology companies, including Google and Amazon. This case also sparked some support right, Republican Josh Hawley having been elected to the US Senate of Missouri while he was running on an extremely anti-Google platform.
Of course, Facebook has sparked a lot of controversy over the protection of privacy, the interference of Russia and the spread of false news and hate speech.
Source link
