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This guest post by Richard Price (founder and CEO of Academia.edu) addresses a bill called "The Research Works Act" intended to "restrict public access to publicly-funded research." Price points out that over 5,500 academics have signed a boycott of Elsevier, the largest academic publisher and one of the main sponsors. Several companies in the journal industry, however, argue that they've historically supported themselves by charging for access to research papers and that the government's open access mandate threatens their industry's sustainability by encouraging research institutions to stop subscribing to the journals and just wait to get the research for free.

Google spent $5.03 million on lobbying in the first quarter of the year, almost matching its entire 2010 lobbying budget of $5.2 million. In comparison, Apple spent $500,000 and Microsoft spent $1.79 million during the same quarter. If Google maintains this pace, it will outspend the entire tobacco industry ($17 million) and the combined spending of JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup ($18 million).