As lawmakers prepare for the 2024 legislative session in New York, online retail titan Amazon.com Inc. is reportedly increasing its lobbying efforts in the region. Governor Kathy Hochul (D) and other legislators are set to deliberate over a slew of issues significant to the tech industry such as artificial intelligence, data privacy, and labor conditions at warehouses.
Notably, the company’s expenditure on lobbying efforts in New York has reportedly exceeded the spending of its major tech counterparts, with recent data showing the company finessed roughly $60,000 per month on lobbying public officials in New York. Amazon’s lobbying gambit includes Governor Hochul and at least 20 legislators. These officials are engrossed in over a dozen pending bills, as discerned from official filings.
The company, characterized by Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, as having a “platoon of lobbyists throughout the country and in New York,” is not without opposition. Amazon has previously been identified as a leading adversary of labor unions and of some significant lawmakers.
The funds and efforts dedicated to lobbying underscore the high stakes of the upcoming legislative changes for Amazon. The company’s increasing engagement in this sphere is unfolding against the broader backdrop of the tech industry’s prominent role in policy debates around subjects including artificial intelligence, labor law, and data privacy.
Full details of Amazon’s lobbying efforts, upcoming bills, and their possible implications for the tech industry can be found in the full report on Bloomberg Law.