Of course, one of the primary causes was
their proposed paid search deal, but both giants also pushed to support more altruistic legislation. Google, for example, spent some $730,000 on causes ranging from measures designed to protect
children from online predators, spyware crackdown proposals, as well as net neutrality. It's worth noting that Big G spent more on lobbying in the first two quarters of 2008 than in all of 2007.
Meanwhile, Yahoo spent $630,000 to help fight the dramatic increase in royalties that online radio stations were forced to pay to the Copyright Royalty Board, and to help make it illegal for U.S. companies to be forced to give Internet users' info over to governments in countries that restrict Web access.