With the FTC breathing down its neck, Google has stepped up its lobbying spend in the last year, shelling out $4.03 million in 2009. That's up 44% from the year prior.

Despite the growth, Google's lobbying spend remains relatively small. Microsoft spent $6.7 million in 2009. Comcast spent $12.6 and AT&T spent $14.7 million.

We decided to take a look at lobbying from tech companies after we ran a chart looking at ad spending for tech companies. (For what it's worth, Google's lobbying is half what it spends on advertising.) Our lobbying data comes from the Senate Office of Public Affairs database. We also graphed lobbying spend as a percent of revenue.

Interestingly, of the companies we looked at, Apple spends the least on lobbying as percent of revenue. Guess that's the advantage of not dominating any market, other than mp3 players.

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