Google is speaking loud and clear in Washington D.C., nearly doubling its expenditures on federal lobbying efforts last year. Cnet’s Jay Greene dug into the federal filings at the United States Senate Office of Public Records, and found that Google spent $9.68 million lobbying legislators last year.

That was an 88 percent increase, putting it ahead of Microsoft, which spent $7.34 million, a six percent increase.

Could this signal the changing dynamics of the tech industry?

Perhaps. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that Microsoft was fending off antri-trust suits.

As Greene writes, Google has been facing scrutiny in terms of how its using its power in online search. Critics last month pointed specifically to how the company is using its newfound power in travel search, an area that the search titan expanded into aggressively last year after a long-fought battle to purchase ITA Software.

Greene offers a few more details on where Google’s cash is going here, and quotes Consumer Watchdog’s John Simpson as saying that Google isn’t really living up to its mantra of “Don’t be Evil.”

“They’ve decided to play the corrupt corporate cash and carry Washington (game) like many firms such as Microsoft have long done,” Simpson says.

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