Big Tech companies such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon have given money to a large number of political advocacy groups in the past three years to defend themselves from public scrutiny and government regulations, according to new research released Wednesday.
The tech companies have given to 771 third-party organizations since 2015, with a significant spike in funding outside groups since 2018, after federal and state governments increased scrutiny of tech companies’ anti-competitive behavior and user privacy violations, according to new data accumulated by the Tech Transparency Project, part of the nonprofit watchdog Campaign for Accountability.
At least 58 groups have received funding from all three tech giants, including heavy hitters in politics and policy such as the Republican and Democratic Governors Associations; the Progressive Policy Institute; New America Foundation, a left-leaning think tank; the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University; American Antitrust Institute, a pro-competition think thank; and the conservative Americans for Tax Reform.
“Big Tech companies are spending record sums on lobbying as they face growing regulatory scrutiny in Washington and the states,” the Tech Transparency Project wrote in their research report. “But the companies have also engaged in a more subtle form of influence building, funding everything from think tanks to advocacy groups to local chambers of commerce —which are involved in key policy debates and often serve to amplify the tech giants’ views.”
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Although the new data doesn’t shed light on the exact amount of each contribution, it’s clear the tech giants have given extensively to groups on both sides of the aisle to build massive influence operations.
The project’s database includes funding that the three tech companies have voluntarily disclosed between 2015 and 2021, so it may not capture the full extent of Big Tech-funded groups.
Google, in particular, more than doubled the number of outside groups it gave to in 2018 and 2019, compared to 2017, as the company faced pressures from California’s landmark consumer privacy law.
Amazon went from giving to 42 outside organizations in 2015 to 251 in 2020, thanks in part to growing anti-monopoly pressures from the federal government and the company’s aggressive push to secure government cloud computing contracts.
“Many of these groups provide reliable cover to Big Tech companies as they come under increasing attack from lawmakers and government officials,” the project said.
The project highlighted the Progressive Policy Institute as an example of the tech company’s success in funding and nudging outside groups.
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PPI has been critical of calls to break up the tech giants, pushing back against the House Judiciary antitrust report from 2020 that found Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple behaved anti-competitively and sending employees to testify at government hearings in defense of Big Tech.
