[voodoo123]

Utterly false. Apple is not a lobbying juggernaut at all and spends less on lobbying than any of the other major tech companies: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76073.html

Apple is also taking a serious beating from Obama's DOJ. So clearly not 'a favorite' of the governments.

[ruswick]

Entirely incorrect. Evidently, you neglected to read the details of the article. First, Samsung isn't mentioned at all, so there's no context for this specific debate. The fact that Microsoft or IBM gave more money to government officials means absolutely nothing when someone is trying to to decide between Apple and Samsung. Moreover, this article pertains only to a three month period. You can't possibly pretend that this data is conclusive.

I actually looked up the empirics. First, Samsung didn't really lobby at all until last year, whereas Apple has consistently spent millions. Even when Samsung did start expanding their lobbying efforts, Apple has outspent them by more than double every year.

The article to which you linked is in no way pertinent to the discussion, and totally betrays the actual statistics.

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000042406...

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000021754...

[voodoo123]

Nope. I was replying to the idea that Apple is a 'lobbying juggernaut' and 'government favorite' which is demonstrably false.