Apple spends $1.5 million on lobbying in Q3

What you need to know

• Apple spent $1.5 million on lobbying in Q3.
• That's less than Q3 of last year, and much less than companies like Facebook and Amazon.
• Issues Apple lobbied for included climate change, corporate tax reform, and patent reform.

Apple spent just over $1.5 million in lobbying in Q3 of 2020, down from the same period last year and significantly less than companies like Facebook and Amazon.

The filing, first noted by setteBIT is a routine declaration of money spent by Apple on political lobbying and is filed with the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives and Secretary of the US Senate on a quarterly basis.

The filing reveals Apple spent $1.56 million between July 1 and September 30 this year, that's down from the same period last year, and a lot less than Facebook ($4.9M) and Amazon ($4.41):

The filing lists numerous specific issues that Apple has tried to lobby the government on, specifically:

• General patent reform
• General copyright issues
• Issues related to the sale of counterfeit products
• Issues related to proposed PTO rule making
• Corporate tax reform implementation
• International tax and issues related to foreign regulatory actions
• Issues related to tax credits for domestic semiconductor production
• Issues related to student privacy
• Issues related to computer science education
• Issues related to the response to the COVID-19 virus
• Issues related to the distribution of video programming
• Issues related to spectrum allocations
• Issues related to technology platform liability
• Climate change
• International environmental policy
• Standards and technical barriers to trade
• Market access, including tariffs and non-tariff barriers
• Issues related to export control regulations and foreign investment
• Issues related to trade agreement negotiations
• Issues related to supply chain security and labor practices
• General consumer privacy issues
• Battery transportation & safety issues
• Issues related to consumer fraud
• Issues related to government requests for data
• Issues related to the EARN IT Act
• Issues related to criminal justice reform
• Issues related to mobile devices and health records
• Issues related to the regulation of mobile medical applications
• Issues related to privacy and health data
• Issues related to consumer access to mobile medical devices and applications
• Issue related to the response to the COVID-19 virus
• Issues related to mobile payments
• Issues related to Apple Card
• Issues related to diversity in the workplace
• Issues related to competition in the mobile technology industry
• Issues related to workforce training
• Issues related to actions by foreign competition authorities
• Issues related to standard essential patents
• Issues related to the development of autonomous vehicle technologies
• Issues related to immigration, including high-skilled immigration
• Issues related to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program
• Issues related to NIST verification processes

Apple has often spoken out against issues such as climate change, and Tim Cook has publicly advocated for global tax reform.

You can read the full filing here.