‘Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) Spent $1M Lobbying For Rental History Sharing

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Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), under its own political action committee, has spent over a million dollars lobbying in Washington, DC, to enable its users share their video viewing history through social channels.

'Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) Spent $1M Lobbying For Rental History Sharing

The Political Action Committee (PAC),  FLIXPAC ,was formed earlier this years to work on issues like the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), which, ever since the committee formed, has been the top most priority of the company. The VPPA restricted the company to share a user’s video rental history without a written consent.

“FLIXPAC was NOT set up to support SOPA/PIPA. Instead, we engage on issues like net neutrality, bandwidth caps, UBB and VPPA.” said the company.

Once the Congress passed the VPPA reform, services like Netflix can now integrate with social media vectors without asking for a customer consent in writing, as it was a mandatory requisite by the former law. The reform allowed Netflix users to now share their viewing habits on social networks like Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB).

Lobbying over 2 years at maximum, Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) has spent more than $1 million over the issue that became a success in the form of the new bill signed off by the President. With so many other policy issues on its plate, including net neutrality and bandwidth cap, the company’s spending of half a million dollars per year might not hold a candle to the total of $905 million that the company received as its third quarter revenue.

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) competitor Hulu has offered Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) integration since 2011, but has been sued in California under the old VPPA law as a result. It was reported that the company is still battling it out in court.

Now, from the look of it, managing to coup with a rather bigger political issue, at a time when its competitor is still battling with the repercussions of going against the law,  all the cost that Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) incurred on achieving a favorable result paid off and the company has the win it worked for.

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