How Facebook’s record lobbying spending compares to other tech companies

Facebook spent more money lobbying the US government in the first quarter of 2018 than it ever has before, according to a new filing. The social media company forked over $3.3 million to steer lawmakers on privacy, security, online advertising and transparency efforts, among other issues.

While that’s a lot for Facebook, it’s not far from what its peers spend. Amazon spent slightly more, $3.38 million, last quarter as it looked for favorable policies on everything from taxes to music licensing to drones. Google was the lead tech spender so far in 2018, dishing out more than $5 million to influence policies on intellectual property, “student digital privacy” and law enforcement access to data stored abroad.