ESA Spends Over $1.2 Million In Q2 2009 Lobbying

The Associated Press has unearthed information that the Electronic Software Association has spent over $1.2 million lobbying and advocating games to various government groups in the second quarter of 2009, representing April through June. The publisher-funded advocacy group, which also manages the ESRB and runs the E3 trade show, lobbied in areas as diverse as telecommunications, consumer issues/safety/products, and immigration, according to this nine page official finding made available by the Game Politics web site. Game Politics has concatenated a list of the agencies lobbied, and the issues the ESA wanted to tackle, in a handy list, which we reprint here (these results come directly from the officially-filed document). The document does not say in which ways the funds were used, nor how much was spent where, nor the direction of the specific lobbying, but the information that follows does help paint a picture of what the ESA is actually doing day-to-day to help advocate for the games industry. Agencies lobbied Department of Commerce Department of Homeland Security Department of Justice FBI Federal Communications Commission Federal Trade Commission National Telecommunications & Information Administration National Security Council Patent & Trademark Office U.S. House of Representatives U.S. Senate U.S. Copyright Office U.S. Customs & Border Protection U.S. Trade Representative Issues lobbied Anti-circumvention Broadband deployment Broadband policy Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act implementation Content/video game sale regulation Copyright Act Copyright Enforcement Customs reauthorization Dept. of Justice appropriations Dept. of State reauthorization Doha Round Proceedings Domestic regulatory & administrative issues Entertainment industry ratings First Amendment protection Free Trade Agreements Green cards H1-B visas Highly skilled workforce Immigration reform Intellectual property enforcement Internet Governance ISP management Media regulation Online gaming Parental control technology Patent modernization Piracy PRO-IP Act appropriations Retailer enforcement of ratings Special 301 Designated Countries Trade enforcement Trade Policy Reform Trade Promotion Authority Virtual worlds