The tech giant Google is not short of any reason to be covered in the media and this time, it is making headlines for slashing down the money it invests in things like lobbying. The company has invested half of the money it did in the year 2018 as claimed by the recent reports in the media. On the other side, the government investigations have gone up in the tech companies scaling high over Washington along with the country. of the top four tech companies that have been facing issues like the antitrust scrutiny, Google owned Alphabet too is facing the same and it has reduced the money it has done in the recent past.
Google has invested around Google: $11.8 million, which is 44% less than the last year, while Facebook leads the show by investing around $16.7 million with the 32% of addition followed by other companies like Amazon putting money of $16.1 million, which tends to have boosted up by 14%, while Apple remains at the bottom with $7.4 million boosting up by 10%. Google is now seen facing the antitrust probes from the Justice Department along with the coalition of 50 odd attorneys general all over the nation. Its YouTube subsidiary that has to give the answer to Federal Trade Commission last year with a $170 million settlement that come along with the claim thus violating the child privacy laws.
Talking about its lobbying in the fourth quarter, the company is seen lobbying over the mobile location privacy, along with issues like online child safety, and encryption standards along with many more. Google is seen having the key business units that are seen holding the company Alphabet that has account to the substantially of all the revenue and profits. Google was seen reducing the spending which further talks about the way it has fired a dozen of companies that represented the half of the lobbying bill claimed the reports of The Wall Street Journal. This move has further added the broadening of the global government of the Google affairs along with the policy operations.
On the other side, Facebook is seen with boosting up the lobbying expenses with a great precentage and the year 2019 witnessed the highest of all. Despite the fact that the company is seen facing over the federal antitrust probe coming from FTC along with the state led probe seen by 47 attorneys general. Facebook has embarked with a more comprehensive approach towards 2019 when compared to the earlier years claims CEO M Zuckerberg who was seen visiting the lawmakers from any private meeting on the technology regulation about the open hearing of the company about their plans on cryptocurrency. The fourth quarter has witnessed the government talking about the issues like encryption, content policy and election integrity.