Ondrej Holzman Apple CEO Tim Cook has a different approach to many areas than his predecessor Steve Jobs, and Washington, DC, home to the US government and important political institutions, is no different. Under Cook's leadership, Apple significantly increased lobbying.
Cook visited the capital of the United States, where the Californian company rarely appeared during the Steve Jobs era, in December and met with, for example, Senator Orrin Hatch, who is taking over the Senate Finance Committee this year. Cook had several meetings scheduled in DC and did not miss the Apple Store in Georgetown.
Tim Cook's active presence in the Capitol is not surprising considering that Apple is constantly expanding into other areas of interest, with which comes the increased interest of American lawmakers. An example is the Apple Watch, through which Apple will collect data on the movement of users.
In the last quarter, Apple lobbied the White House, Congress and 13 other departments and agencies, from the Food and Drug Administration to the Federal Trade Commission. For comparison, in 2009 under Steve Jobs, Apple lobbied only in Congress and six other offices.
Apple's lobbying activity on the rise
"They've learned what others here have learned before them -- that Washington can have a significant effect on their business," said Larry Noble of the Campaign Legal Center, a political finance nonprofit. Tim Cook is trying to be more open with government officials and ease his position during Apple's boom.
Although Apple's investment in lobbying remains minimal compared to other technology companies, it is double the amount compared to the situation five years ago. In 2013, it was a record 3,4 million dollars, and last year it should not be a lower amount.
"We've never been very active in the city," Tim Cook said a year and a half ago to the senators who they interrogated in the context of the tax payment case. Since then, Apple's boss has made several important acquisitions that will help him in Washington.
He has been dealing with environmental issues since 2013 Lisa Jackson, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, who also began to speak publicly on this topic. "We understand that we need to talk about it," she explained during the Commonwealth Club meeting in San Francisco.
Amber Cottle, the former head of the Senate Finance Committee, who knows Washington very well and now directly manages the lobbying office at Apple, also came to Apple last year.
With increased activity, Apple would certainly like to avoid clashes with the highest American representatives and authorities in the future, such as a large-scale case of artificially inflating the price of e-books or necessity pay for parents' shopping, which were unknowingly made by their children in the App Store.
Apple is also already actively working with the Food and Drug Administration, with which it consults on some of its new products, such as mobile health apps, and it showed the new Apple Watch and the Health app to the Federal Trade Commission in the fall. In short, the California company is clearly trying to be much more proactive in order to prevent potential problems.
