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.