While lobbying efforts from the tech sector took a slight dip from Q1 - $23 million from April - June of 2010, companies like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Google, Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Cisco, Facebook, Yahoo, Apple, HP and Amazon still managed to spend $19 million to influence lawmakers in Q2. While those numbers were lower in Q2, they prove that this small sampling of tech companies is spending obscene amounts of cash to get lawmakers behind their various causes.
Comcast spent more than $3.8 million last quarter to drum up support for its proposed NBC merger and other issues. Verizon spent about $4.4 million to to influence lawmakers on an expanded research & development tax credit and the Universal Service Fund. Hewlett Packard spent $1.6 million in lobbying dollars to influence lawmakers on white spaces, patents and taxes. Microsoft spent a small undisclosed part of its $1.85 million lobbying warchest to get the discussion on cybersecurity started. Finally, Google spent $1.3 million in Washington on broadband, cloud computing and a host of other issues.
Source: Politico's Morning Tech
