Amazon, Facebook and Google beef up lobbying spending

Facebook, Google and Amazon bolstered their lobbying spending in the past three months as Washington has taken a closer look at the market power of some of America's biggest tech companies. Facebook spent $2.85 million lobbying the federal government in the third quarter, up 41 percent from the same period in 2016, according to disclosure reports made public Oct 20. Part of that amount was dedicated to lobbying officials in Congress and the White House on “online advertising, content and platform transparency efforts.”

The lobbying comes as the social network, along with Google and Twitter, faces a new bipartisan push on Capitol Hill that would force Internet companies to disclose more information about political ads sold and distributed on their platforms. Google’s X lab, the company's testing ground for its most ambitious projects, is now hiring its first outside lobbyists, too. Of any corporation in or out of the tech industry, Google spent the second-highest amount. AT&T topped everyone, at $4.43 million.