Spreading Freedom: Google, Microsoft And The War For The Web

Google and Microsoft now dominate influence-peddling around Internet issues, each having spent $3.5 million on lobbying through the first half of 2011.

Google's total lobbyist count is now up to 93, the highest number the company has ever had in Washington (roughly one for every six members of Congress). The biggest thrust of Google’s lobbying push involves antitrust, patents, copyright, trade and China. Microsoft’s lobbying peaked in the mid-2000s, when Congress and antitrust investigators had their sights set on the software powerhouse. Currently, the company’s work in Washington is largely focused on setting and gaming the tax code, a pet issue for corporations seasoned in the ways of the capitol. Still, Microsoft’s lobbyists also continue to work heavily on antitrust, patent, copyright, trade, and China issues. Sixty-four percent of the 76 lobbyists employed by Microsoft are registered on these issues. Eighty-one percent of those lobbyists have previous government experience, according to a HuffPost analysis of lobbying disclosure reports and data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Microsoft continues to dominate Google when it comes to campaign and political action committee spending, outspending Google nearly tenfold in the first half of 2011. Microsoft reported contributing $580,000 to congressmen, candidates, political parties and leadership PACs, while Google reported $61,000 in donations over the same period. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, speaking to reporters after his sworn testimony, said that Microsoft had been lobbying hard to pressure Congress to bring the antitrust hammer down on Google -- the blunt pain of which Microsoft knows all too well.