Tech giants spent record $50 million lobbying the US in 2017
The dramatic shift in American politics during 2017 created many headaches for the tech industry -- and you'd better believe they spent plenty of money trying to cure those headaches. Recode has combed through House and Senate records to learn that Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft spent a combined $50 million (a record amount) lobbying the US government in 2017. Outside of Microsoft, the corporate giants spent millions more fighting for and against policies -- some of which werent't even on the radar in previous years. There were common issues. The companies not only opposed anti-immigration policies that could hurt their ability to recruit talent from abroad, but also the Honest Ads Act , an anti-sex trafficking bill and other attempts to regulate internet content in light of Russian manipulation campaigns . And to no one's surprise, the companies fought hard to preserve net neutrality while simultaneously supporting lower corporate taxes. Some issue...