[Foundation-l] Politico: "Wikimedia foundation hires lobbyists on sopa, pipa"

[Nathan]

On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 5:46 PM, Theo10011 <de10011 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Mike, I completely understand your point on this and where you are coming
> from. But you made a conflicting point yourself....
>
> On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 8:26 PM, Mike Godwin <mnemonic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > None of this requires that any nonprofit spend the kind of lobbying
> > dollars that Google spends -- even if that were possible (and of
> > course it isn't remotely possible). The money WMF spends on something
> > like this is microscopic compared to that of for-profit corporation,
> > and pretty small even compared to other nonprofits. Nevertheless, a
> > nonprofit showing up and making its voice heard -- especially when its
> > arguments dovetail with those of much larger players like Google --
> > counts for a lot.  It can't be easily dismissed. It makes most
> > policymakers think twice.
>
>
>
Just a technical point - companies like Google etc. don't spend hundreds of
millions on lobbying. If I remember correctly, Google spent on the order of
$6 million on lobbying last year... So if the WMF spent half its budget in
Washington, it would certainly become the new lobbying behemoth of the tech
sector! (And promptly forfeit its budget for the following year, of
course...).