Wireless Firms Dial Up Lobbyists
The wireless industry has begun bracing for a long four years. Regulators and lawmakers are examining a widening number of issues–from exclusive handset deals to text-messaging rates–that could impact...
View ArticleWTF? Web Throws Cheeseheads for a Loop.
Internet culture, you owe the good people of Wisconsin an apology. There they were, just minding their own business. And trying to generate a bit more business via the Wisconsin Tourism Federation, a...
View ArticleBeltway Hustle: Google Quickly Gaining on Microsoft in D.C. Lobbying Spending
Please see this disclosure related to me and Google. While Microsoft has needed all the help it could hire in Washington, D.C., after its antitrust debacle many years ago, Google is quickly catching up...
View ArticleAnother Googler Joins the Obama Administration–Now We've Got a Foursome!
Please see this disclosure related to me and Google. It will be like they never left the Googleplex in Silicon Valley if this Washington, D.C., invasion of execs from the search giant keeps up. The...
View Article"My Life on the D List" Meets All Things D
While in Washington, D.C., this week, BoomTown got to go to a dinner in honor of comic Kathy Griffin. Griffin’s reality television show is called “My Life on the D List,” and we’re proud to share the...
View ArticleTalk's Not Cheap for Google in D.C.
With the federal government paying ever more attention to Google, it’s understandable that Google is returning the favor. The company’s latest lobbying disclosure shows it spent $1.34 million in the...
View ArticleThe FCC Votes on Net Neutrality Tomorrow; the Internet Waits
The battle over net neutrality–a sweeping, wonkish policy debate concerning the government’s role in telling broadband Internet service providers how they must operate their networks–is coming to a...
View ArticleWhat Tech Companies Are Spending in Washington
It’s no big surprise that big companies spend a lot of money in Washington to try to influence the outcome of pending legislation and to try to talk lawmakers and agency officials out of regulating one...
View ArticleGoogle Puts More Cash Toward Capital Clout
“I’ve never seen a tech company ramp up faster than they have in the last year or two,” tech lobbyist Ralph Hellmann once said of Google. “They’re using all the tools in the lobbying tool kit.” And...
View ArticleApple's D.C. Lobbying Efforts Get Fierce
Apple closed its big government affairs office in Washington, D.C., in the late ’90s and since that time has maintained a fairly low profile inside the Beltway, relative to other big tech firms. Its...
View ArticleGoogle Loses Longtime Lobbyist (Updated)
Eric Schmidt (left) with Alan Davidson and an unidentified mimeLooks like Google’s in the market for a new influence peddler. Alan Davidson, who has long served as director of public policy and...
View Article"Nerd Lobby" Shows Muscle in Debate Over Piracy Bills
Late last fall, a select group met in the White House Situation Room to discuss U.S. Internet security and how it might falter if two anti-piracy bills being debated in Congress were to pass. The...
View ArticleThe Full Valenti: Dodd Trades His Olive Branch to Tech for a Howitzer, After...
Poor Chris Dodd — he just got the top media lobbying job in Washington, D.C., at the very moment that the strong-arming-pols, scare-the-children, Jack Valenti era in media lobbying is now decidedly...
View ArticleGoogle's 2011 Lobbying Expenses Climb to $9.68 Million
Google’s interests in Washington these days are quite a bit broader than they once were: Competition, privacy, patent reform, copyright, H1-B visa reform, renewable energy — the list goes on. No...
View ArticleGoogle Taps Former Rep. Molinari to Oversee Lobbying
Google Inc. has tapped former congresswoman and veteran lobbyist Susan Molinari to oversee government outreach in the Americas, adding muscle to the Internet giant’s political presence amid ongoing...
View ArticleNetflix Says Its PAC Is Not About SOPA
From the “yes, sometimes big companies like to influence the way government works” file: After a day of not commenting about its newly formed political action committee, Netflix has come out with a...
View ArticleGoogle's Q1 Federal Lobbying Receipt: $5M
Google spent $5.03 million on federal lobbying in the first quarter of 2012, according to a regulatory document filed Friday. That topped such traditional big spenders as Verizon ($4.51 million) and...
View ArticleFacebook Beats Its Own Quarterly Lobbying Spending Record
Facebook spent $960,000 on lobbying Congress in the second quarter, according to a recent disclosure filing. That’s the most the company has spent on lobbying in a single quarter, as National Journal...
View ArticleGoogle's Driverless Car Draws Political Power
Marilyn Dondero Loop, a Nevada state assemblywoman, remembers being skeptical and concerned of possible dangers with self-driving cars when a Google Inc. lobbyist first approached her last year. But...
View ArticleGoogle on Track for Another Record High: Lobbying Expenses
Google this week disclosed it spent $4.18 million on U.S. lobbying in the third quarter of 2012, bringing the company to $13.13 million spent this year — a record. That makes Google the seventh-biggest...
View ArticlePlease Welcome Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Brad Smith and Sean Parker to the...
Mr. Zuckerberg isn’t the only tech titan scaling Capitol Hill this year — he brought friends. The Facebook CEO adds a few more impressive names to the roster of his D.C. political advocacy group on...
View ArticleApple Pumping More Money Into Lobbying
Apple has never had much of a profile inside the Beltway. It shuttered its big government affairs office in Washington, D.C., in the late ’90s and since that time hasn’t had much of a presence in the...
View ArticleAs Senate Passes Immigration Bill, the ZuckerPAC Takes a Victory Lap
And the ZuckerPAC gets a win. On a 68-32 vote on Thursday afternoon, the Senate voted to pass a comprehensive overhaul to U.S. immigration policy that could potentially upend current restrictions and...
View ArticleThe ZuckerPAC Says It Cares About All Immigrants, Not Just the Techies
Silicon Valley has a problem. There are many jobs to fill, and not enough talented engineers to fill them. That is, at least in part, why Mark Zuckerberg and a host of tech luminaries founded and...
View ArticleDon't Regulate Me, Bro! Social Casino Companies Band Together to "Inform"...
Free-to-play games are unregulated, and some of the companies that make them would like to keep it that way. For most game developers, governmental regulation is a non-issue.* But the studios behind...
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