Microsoft and Google spend way more on lobbying the EU than other American tech companies

By Matt Rosoff

Last week, Google responded to the European Union's ongoing investigation of its search engine with a blog post claiming that it did nothing wrong.

But public blog posts aren't the only method Google is using to try and influence European regulators. The company spent about $4 million last year lobbying EU institutions, according to statistics from The EU Transparency Register compiled here by Statista.

But Google's arch-rival Microsoft spends even more - over $5 million last year.