Tech Pours Millions Into Lobbying While Pressure Mounts in Washington

There was a time, until pretty recently actually, when tech mostly minded its own business out on the West Coast. Likewise Washington DC didn’t look to Silicon Valley as a cash cow yet either.

That era, sadly, is now very long gone. Consider that Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google/Alphabet not only supported Hillary Clinton with money and general support, but actually FOUNDED A COMPANY, Groundwork, that was tasked with getting her elected.

Or that the CIA did a $600 million deal to use Amazon’s cloud.

Washington and tech are closely joined these days. Cronyism is widespread.

(From Bloomberg)

Technology companies including Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. spent more than $10 million on federal lobbying in the third quarter, as Washington ratcheted up pressure on issues ranging from child sex-trafficking to Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election.

Amazon spent $3.41 million — its biggest quarter in at least nine years — on tax policy, cloud security and computing, and others, according to lobbying disclosures posted Friday for the three months ending Sept. 30. Facebook spent $2.85 million, while Alphabet Inc.’s Google paid out $4.17 million. Twitter Inc. spent $120,000.

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/