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Comment by ruswick | Hacker News Reader

Although there is clear legal justification for this veto, I still fear that it was issued for perverse reasons. Apple is a lobbying juggernaut and is a favorite among the Government. Undoubtedly, Apple exerted extreme pressure on this decision, and I have severe doubts that this same conclusion would have been reached had Apple sought an embargo on Samsung products. Absurd cases and wholesale perversion of intellectual property law are nothing new in this country. Why has the administration only intervened for Apple?

It's just worrying when proper execution of the law becomes transactional.

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> Apple is a lobbying juggernaut

Wrong.

Apple's not even in the top ten tech companies. In 2012, Google spent $18M while Apple spent $1.9M, less than Google, Microsoft, Hp, Oracle, IBM, Facebook, Intel, Cisco, Amazon, and Dell.

Handy chart:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/02/18/apple-reduced-fede...

Key quotes: "Apple has historically spent less than its rivals on government lobbying" and "Apple's lobbying efforts were spread out pretty thinly over a wide range of issues".

So, pretty much the opposite of "juggernaut".

Slightly off topic, but lobbying includes companies lobbying against NSA privacy contentions, so lobbying by the $ is not a good measure of wanting a "self licking icecream".

In that case Apple has still 'lobbied' far less than its US competitors by holding out against prism.

A reply to both Terretta and voodoo123: you don't suppose putting the former Democratic vice president on your board improves, not to mention leverages, lobbying "power", do you?

At the very least, whatever Al Gore is getting paid should probably get added to the official lobbying expenses.

Utterly false. Apple is not a lobbying juggernaut at all and spends less on lobbying than any of the other major tech companies: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76073.html

Apple is also taking a serious beating from Obama's DOJ. So clearly not 'a favorite' of the governments.

Entirely incorrect. Evidently, you neglected to read the details of the article. First, Samsung isn't mentioned at all, so there's no context for this specific debate. The fact that Microsoft or IBM gave more money to government officials means absolutely nothing when someone is trying to to decide between Apple and Samsung. Moreover, this article pertains only to a three month period. You can't possibly pretend that this data is conclusive.

I actually looked up the empirics. First, Samsung didn't really lobby at all until last year, whereas Apple has consistently spent millions. Even when Samsung did start expanding their lobbying efforts, Apple has outspent them by more than double every year.

The article to which you linked is in no way pertinent to the discussion, and totally betrays the actual statistics.

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000042406...

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000021754...

Nope. I was replying to the idea that Apple is a 'lobbying juggernaut' and 'government favorite' which is demonstrably false.

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