Tech giants led by #Amazon, #Facebook and #Google spent nearly $500 million on lobbying in 10 years, data show. #TheWashingtonPost

Ten years ago, Google executives rarely spoke to Congress. Amazon employed just two of its own registered lobbyists in Washington. And Facebook had only recently graduated to a real office after running its D.C. operation out of an employee's living room.Since then, though, these tech companies have evolved into some of the most potent political forces in the nation's capital, a Washington Post analysis of new federal records reveals, with just seven tech giants accounting for nearly half a billion dollars in lobbying over the past decade.The data - culled from the companies' required filings to the government, including new reports made public late Tuesday - tell the story of a sector that increasingly has tapped its deep pockets to beat back regulatory threats and boost its bottom line. Despite massive scandals that exposed users' personal information and left democratic elections in digital disarray, Congress has failed to adopt new laws to limit the industry - a reality some critics attribute in part to the Silicon Valley's evolving lobbying prowess."These companies, because they are so large, have tremendous economic power and tremendous political power," said Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline, a top Democrat leading the House in an antitrust investigation of big tech companies. "And they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars to try to protect the status quo."