Apple is stepping up their lobbying efforts in the U.S. Capitol, in an effort to counter increased government scrutiny over subjects that include ebooks, in-app sales, and the security of users’ health data.
Apple, which has come under increasing scrutiny as the world’s most valuable company, is becoming more of a regular around Washington. While co-founder Steve Jobs shunned the nation’s capital, Apple lobbied the White House, Congress and 13 departments and agencies from the Food and Drug Administration to the Federal Trade Commission in 2014 through the third quarter, according to OpenSecrets.org. In 2009, Apple lobbied only Congress and six agencies.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is behind a broader push to make the Cupertino firm more open – while laying the groundwork for new products, such as the upcoming Apple Watch – which will likely lead to increased government scrutiny. The Apple Watch, arriving in stores later this year, includes apps which track a user’s health data.
Apple’s spending is low when compared to such companies as Microsoft and Google, who spent $6 million and $23.7 million respectively on lobbying through the third quarter of last year. In that same time period, Apple spent a mere $2.9 million. However, the $3.4 million Apple was on pace to spend in 2014 on Washington lobbying is twice as much as the company spent just five years ago.
Apple has added staff in the nation’s capitol, last year hiring Amber Cottle, former chief of staff for the Senate Finance Committee, to lead Apple’s lobbying office, replacing Catherine Novelli, who joined the State Department.
Cook hired former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson in 2013 to head the company’s environmental initiatives. While Apple had long been a leader in environmental issues, it didn’t let enough people know what it was doing.
“We understand that we need to talk about it,” Jackson said this month. “We need to say to people, ‘Stop saying it can’t be done, here it is.’”
Apple also added legal muscle to its lobbying team, hiring law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP. The firm – which represented Apple in its patent fight with Samsung – was hired to lobby on issues of competition, intellectual property and technology, says a Senate filing.
The hiring follows legal setbacks for Apple in Washington, as the Justice Department won a case against Apple in 2013 for conspiring with publishers to fix e-book pricing. The FTC also last year accused Apple of unfair billing to parents over charges for in-app purchases their offspring made without their knowledge. Apple refunded $32.5 million to customers to settle that complaint.
Apple’s increased activity in the capitol also points to some of the company’s future plans. December 2013 saw four Apple vice presidents meet with FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and her staff about mobile medical applications.
“It’s not unusual for a company that’s a device company to go meet with FDA and I think Apple is becoming a device company,” Jeffrey Gibbs, a lawyer at the Washington-based firm Hyman, Phelps & McNamara, said in an interview. “The FDA doesn’t want to be surprised, especially if you’re a very prominent company like Apple.”
The company also met last fall with FTC officials to demonstrate the Apple Watch and the Health app. The company discussed how Apple’s products collect and use user health data, and expressed a commitment to protecting that data, explaining that the data collected cannot be shared with third-party data brokers.
This approach shows signs of working, as FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez praised Apple for touting “as a selling point that they don’t share certain data from connected devices.” Adding that “steps like this are, I believe, critical to fostering consumer trust. And they are good business too.”
Apple is also working to quell privacy concerns over the Apple Watch – and Apple’s new mobile payments service, Apple Pay – in the face of the iCloud scandal last summer involving nude photos and videos of celebrities that were stored in Apple’s cloud storage service being released online.
Apple reportedly sent executives to brief staff members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in September about its new products, which included a discussion about the Apple Watch, Apple Pay mobile payment system and their health care initiatives.
Apple seems to be “getting it,” according to Chris Jones, founder of CapitolWorks, a lobbyist recruiting firm, who says Apple understands there is a need for a proactive approach to Capitol Hill and the administration.
