Lobbying: Apple has reduced the sails in 2021
The latest report from The Hill confirms that the giants of American tech have dropped fortunes to curry favor with the White House and American representatives. Amazon would have spent no less than 20.3 billion dollars to convince the US Congress not to delve too much into its small business, just ahead of the 20.1 billion of Meta (Facebook). As for Google, the amount of Lobbying certainly represents “only” 9.8 billion dollars, but this figure is up by 27% compared to 2020.
And Apple will you tell me? The Californian is the only member of the GAFA to have lowered the sails last year, going from 6.7 billion dollars in lobbying fees in 2020, to 6.5 billion in 2021. We also note that the Cupertino company is the one that devotes the least budget to Lobbying despite its immense fortune, probably also because it is a little less in the sights of the regulatory authorities thanks to an economic model that does not feed on user data.
However, it would be going a little hasty to say that Lobbying is no longer a concern for Apple, especially at a time when the App Store is at the center of all attention (commission, payment system, sideloading ).
