Yahoo’s second-quarter lobbying bill rises 15 pct
Yahoo Inc. spent $550,000 in the second quarter on a lobbying agenda that touched upon issues ranging from the Internet company’s search partnership with Microsoft Corp. to the financial pressures facing journalism because of Internet competition.
The bill for the April-June period represented a 15 percent increase from the $480,000 that lobbying cost Yahoo at the same time last year.
The latest quarter marks Yahoo’s highest lobbying tab for a three-month period since the third quarter of 2008 when it spent $570,000.
With its revenue barely growing, Yahoo has been funneling less money into political persuasion than some of its biggest rivals. Microsoft’s second-quarter lobbying expenses totaled $1,85 million while Google paid out $1,34 million.
Some of Yahoo’s concerns overlapped with its rivals. Those topics included online privacy, Internet advertising and human rights.
The company, based in Sunnyvale, also addressed proposed legislation affecting Internet security, child protection, corporate governance, executive compensation and shareholder rights, according to a disclosure statement filed Tuesday with the House of Representatives’ clerk’s office.
Yahoo also lobbied against a proposed legal settlement that would give Google the digital rights to millions of out-of-print books. Microsoft and Amazon.com Inc. are among the other companies aligned against the Google books deal, which still needs approval from a federal judge.
The various lobbying efforts were directed at Congress, the office of the president, the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department of State, the Federal Communications Commission, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S Trade Representatives.
Among those registered to lobby for Yahoo were: Leslie Dunlap, who once worked in the 1990s for former Congressman J. Dennis Hastert before he became speaker of the House; and David Hantman, former chief of staff for Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
07/13/2010
— Filed under: Internet
Tags: Microsoft Corp., partnership, yahoo
