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Apple spent $1M on lobbying US government in Q3, focused on health, data privacy, more

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According to a recently filed disclosure, Apple spent a little over $1 million over the third quarter on lobbying issues like consumer health data, safe driving, e-books and data privacy, among others.

For the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2014, Apple spent a total of $1,010,000 on a variety of lobbying activities, the company reported in a government disclosure filed on Monday. Apple's contributions are on the low end of a quickly rising industry standard fueled by aggressive solicitation from the likes of Google and other major tech companies.

In all, Apple's money addressed 39 specific lobbying issues, including those tied to existing and future products like e-book publishing, online safety, copyright and patent reform, safe driving (CarPlay) and regulation of mobile medical devices and health software applications (Apple Watch and HealthKit). The company also lobbied for IP infringement, ITC litigation reform and other issues pertaining to legal proceedings.

Continuing its push for consumer privacy, Apple lobbied for change in government requests for data, a hot button topic in recent months. International trade issues were also of concern. Finally, Apple pushed for corporate tax reform and international tax reform, both topics affecting its offshore cash hoard.

As noted by Computerworld, Apple's $1 million lobbying fund is small compared to fellow tech giants Google and Facebook, which spent $3.94 million and $2.54 million over the same three-month period, respectively. Other industry players included Verizon with $2.91 million, Microsoft at $1.66 million and Amazon with $1.18 million.

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21 Comments

blazar 11 Years · 270 comments

That is an extremely small lobby budget considering the size of apple

thewhitefalcon 11 Years · 4444 comments

[quote name="blazar" url="/t/182970/apple-spent-1m-on-lobbying-us-government-in-q3-focused-on-health-data-privacy-more#post_2624598"]That is an extremely small lobby budget considering the size of apple[/quote] I did the numbers yesterday. Apple makes about $500 million in revenue per day. In short, it took them [I]three minutes[/I] to make the money for lobbying.

stourque 17 Years · 365 comments

This pales in comparison to the oil & gas industry. Or the gun lobby, or Wall St.

dsd 14 Years · 186 comments

That's probably less than Samsung paid for the hookers.