As we wrote Sunday, Google is now a master at Washington's influence business. You can see it not only in how much money the Internet giant spends on lobbying, but in the explosion in the number of political advocacy groups, trade associations and think tanks that the company funds. That number doubled in the last four years to nearly 140, according to Google's own list of outside organizations that it voluntarily discloses that it supports.



A Google Inc. logo sits on display inside the Barcelona Growth Center in Barcelona, Spain, on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014. Photographer: David Ramos/Bloomberg

It is not easy to measure the value of those investments, since corporations are not required to disclose such donations. One academic institution, George Mason University's Law & Economics Center, which put on a series of antitrust conferences with Google, received around $350,000 from the company last year, according to the school.

To see who Google is giving to -- and how that has expanded in the last several years -- check out this fascinating visualization by our data folks. Hover over each box to see the name of the group.