Big Tech lobbies against bills which protect IP the most.

Google has spent more on lobbying than any other company in the computers and internet industry in 2012, continuing its exponential increase over the past few years. Google ranked eighth in the industry in 2008. Since then it has finished in the top five annually, climbing to third place in 2010 and first in 2011.

And it has already spent $4.7 million more for lobbying this year than last year, a substantial increase even given that $1.3 million of that was spent by its recently acquired subsidiary, Motorola Mobility.

Google saw a a similar jump last year, when it spent $4.5 million more than it had in 2010.

The increase in outlays by the nation’s dominant search engine firm is generally in line with the trajectory of lobbying expenditures by other companies in its industry. Tech firms have doled out more and more lobbying money even as the amount spent on lobbying by all industries has decreased since 2010 and the number of lobbyists has fallen since 2007.

Google’s increases aren’t entirely a prouct of its fat bank account.  Two bills about which we have written previously — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) — have made Congress a popular search term for Google executives.

Google has lobbied these two bills more than any other legislation this year as well as last, openly opposing them. When some websites shut down for a day in January to protest the bills, Google placed a black box over its logo online, graphically illustrating its argument that the proposals would lead to censorship and curb innovation.