Big Tech spent millions lobbying amid Congressional probe
Technology giants such as Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google spent millions on lobbying in the third quarter of 2020 as they braced for an eruption of antitrust scrutiny in Washington that saw top executives summoned to testify before Congress.
Amazon spent more than $4.4 million, a company record, while Google spent more than $1.9 million on federal lobbying in the three months ending September 30, according to disclosures filed with Congress.
Amazon’s spending jumped nearly 10% from the same period a year earlier as it faced stepped-up scrutiny in Washington. The company also hired two outside lobbying firms, one to work on education and another to work on stimulus responses to the coronavirus pandemic for its cloud computing division.
Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos clashed with David Cicilline, the Rhode Island Democrat
The chiefs of Amazon.com, Apple, Google and Facebook have been involved in a US Congress antitrust probe.
who heads the House antitrust panel that’s investigating competition issues in the technology sector, during a July hearing that also featured testimony from the CEOs of Google, Facebook Inc. and Apple Inc.
The committee’s final report recommended that tech giants shouldn’t be able to compete against companies that operate on their platforms.
Google, which was sued by
the US over allegations that it violated antitrust laws to extend its dominance of search and search advertising, spent more than 14% more than it did in the second quarter of this year. Its third-quarter outlay was down more than 30% from what it spent in the third quarter of 2019 after the company slashed lobbying expenditures in a reorganization of its Washington policy operations.
Apple spent nearly $1.6 million, up slightly from the second quarter, while Facebook spent $4.9 million, up almost 3% from a year earlier and more than 1% from the second quarter, according to the forms.
The subcommittee’s report, which was issued earlier in October and documented what the staff portrayed as extensive anticompetitive behaviour by the firms, recommended an overhaul of the antitrust laws. Cicilline is preparing legislation that could ultimately break up the companies, if adopted.
Google, in addition to the pressure in Congress and Tuesday’s lawsuit by the US justice department and 11 states, also faces potential cases from groups of states and private litigants. Facebook could face a federal lawsuit by year’s end, while Amazon and Apple are also subjects of antitrust investigations. The lobbying disclosures capture a fraction of the companies’ outlays to respond to stepped-up antitrust scrutiny, since spending to confront law enforcement probes involves hiring lawyers and may not appear in the federal disclosures.
Lawmakers and the White House have also increased pressure on the companies in what has become an increasingly partisan battle. Zuckerberg, Pichai and Twitter Inc. CEO Jack Dorsey are due to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee on Oct. 28 on a bipartisan basis, while Zuckerberg and Dorsey could be subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary panel over Republican allegations that the companies are trying to bolster Democrats in the approaching elections.
Twitter, which hasn’t been a big player in Washington up until now, spent $430,000, up more than a third from the year before.
During the period, a flurry of bills, mostly from Republicans, also proposed amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which the companies treasure because it allows them to avoid lawsuits over third-party content.