I just got my hand on what tech companies spend on lobbying. I find it amazing. This past quarter Verizon has spent close to four million dollars, up from three for the same quarter a year ago. Its competitor AT&T is not far behind with 3.5 million this quarter. These figures are in sharp contrast with the least expenders, Apple and Facebook, that spent a “mere” 400 and 200 thousand respectively.
Granted that it is better to have transparency that covert influencing, but these data got me thinking: is this money spent by companies creating value for their shareholders? For their customers? For their employees? In short, could this money be better spent doing something else? One could say that in the Verizon case, with reported profits for this past quarter of 881 million USD, the lobbying effort represents only an insignificant 0.4% of these. But is this the real issue? Why do companies have to spend money “informing” lawmakers of their point of view and try to influence legislation? One cannot help not noticing that the amount of money spent is not proportional to the revenues but to the level of regulation of the industry. Comcast (not in the graph) spent 12 million in FY2009 and over 8 in FY2010.
In fact, a little research in the opensecrets.com site shows that the Computers/internet, Electronics, Telecom Services&Equipment and Telephone utilities spent together a whooping 178 million USD, numbers that compare quite well with the total FCC budget of 335 million USD for FY2010. If we add the entertainment industries, the total spent is close to the FCC budget. And one does not have but to wonder: even if all this money is put to good use generating relevant information for decision making, would it not be better to have it all under one unbiased, Congress-controlled roof? Happy New Year, lobbyists! With net neutrality, convergence of carriers and content providers, mobile and geopositional applications, and the upcoming tablet wars, it will only get better!
