Tech Giants Spent $50 Million Lobbying U.S. Last Year

The year 2017 featured a massive political shift, and the tech industry responded in kind. 

According to Recode, a thorough examination of combing through House and Senate records revealed that tech companies spent a record amount on lobbying last year.

Specifically, the biggest tech companies, Amazon, Apple, Facebook Google and Microsoft, spent a combined $50 million to sway the hearts, minds and votes of Congress.

So what was their agenda? In general, these companies opposed anti-immigration legislation and any specific legislation that attempted to regulate online activity, including the Honest Ads Act and the Anti-Sex Trafficking bill.

They supported and wanted to preserve net neutrality and were in favor of lower corporate taxes.

Google was the company to spend the most money. The tech giant spent more than $18 million lobbying the government and while it shared the same concerns as the rest of the tech industry, Google also spent that money on promoting it's own tech, such as self-driving cars, to the government.

Amazon came in second, spending more than $12.8 million. The company focused on preventing an online sales tax and promoting friendly rules for cloud computing and delivery drones.

Apple spent $7 million, which seems like a small amount compared to Google and Amazon, but it's more than the company has ever spent on lobbying. The iPhone maker was specifically concerned with efforts to undermine encryption.