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"Technology companies are boosting their lobbying budgets, as issues that impact them either directly or indirectly are increasingly falling under the eye of Congress.\u00A0Contentious\u00A0bills such as SOPA, and now CISPA, have led to several companies greatly expanding the amount of money they are spending to make their views known.\r\n\r\nIn the first quarter of 2012, according to a report in The Hill, Facebook spent $650,000, up some 183% from a year ago. Google spent more than $5 million in the quarter, up from $1.5 million a year ago, more than tripling. Microsoft, IBM, and HP each spent around $1.5 million.\r\n\r\nThe increases from Facebook and Google are\u00A0interesting\u00A0as they may indicate a growing concern among leading-edge technology firms that the government might do something foolish, impacting their business.\r\n\r\nCertainly with SOPA, we saw what the technology community is capable of. However, such tactics have less returns the second time around (successive shocks and all that), so the companies may be simply opening their wallets to get their way, or at least to prevent the\u00A0egregious\u00A0ideas that spring from Congressional\u00A0committees. Of course, a big chunk of the increased spend from the companies was likely due to SOPA itself, so we have to take our guess-work with extensive salt.\r\n\r\nGoogle is lobbying on CISPA, it became\u00A0known this morning. However, the company has yet to take a\u00A0position\u00A0on the build.\r\n\r\nStill, technology is becoming political, just as politics is becoming technological. However, politics simply employs technology, while technology itself may lose steam if certain restrictions are put onto it.\r\n\r\nSure, it might not taste right to go the lobbying route, given that tech companies often aspire to some level of\u00A0cleanliness\u00A0(Don't Be Evil!), but political realities can sometimes make everyone play a slimy game. What will be interesting is whether these numbers drop in the second quarter, indicating that they were more SOPA related than not."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/04/23/google-and-facebook-greatly-expanded-their-lobbying-budgets-in-q1/>