Netflix wants to wield more influence in election season By Megan Geuss Ars Technica
April 7, 2012 http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/04/netflix-wants-to-wield-more-influence-in-election-season.ars Earlier this week, Netflix filed a statement of organization with the federal government to form a political action committee, or a PAC, which will allow the company to raise and spend money on campaigns and causes in Washington, D.C. The web service registered its newly-founded committee as "Flixpac." According to the Center for Responsive Politics, "A PAC can give $5,000 to a candidate per election (primary, general or special) and up to $15,000 annually to a national political party. PACs may receive up to $5,000 each from individuals, other PACs, and party committees per year." Microsoft is an example of a tech company with heavy influence in the capitol, spending $1.3 million in contributions last year. Behind the scenes, Netflix has employed lobbyists since the mid-2000's, although it has only employed full-time lobbyists since the end of 2010. The recent years have seen an exponential growth in Netflix's cash flow to Congress, however. In 2009 the company spent $20,000 in lobby money, which grew to $130,000 in 2010, and by 2011 the company reported spending half a million dollars lobbying Congress. A lobbying registration form from November 2010 indicated Netflix's "current and anticipated" lobbying issues included "copyright, telecommunications, consumer protection, tax and the Internet." Donations from Flixpac will likely go to candidates who have strong feelings on those issues as well. Earlier this year, while congress battled over SOPA and PIPA, Netflix largely stayed out of the spotlight, and vacillated on its support of the acts until it took a publicly neutral stance. While Politico suggests the PAC formation is "another political tool with which to aggressively press a pro-intellectual property, anti-video piracy agenda," the company has historically been much more outspoken about federal issues like net neutrality and working around the Video Privacy Protection Act. _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
