https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180831/08371240552/ats-top-anti-net-neutrality-lobbyist-california-doesnt-register-as-lobbyist.shtml

We've noted for years how U.S. lobbying laws and restrictions are essentially hot garbage, and are routinely laughed at by some of the country's largest corporations. The legal DC definition of a lobbyist was beefed up slightly back in 2007, when the Lobbyist Disclosure Act was notably amended by the Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007. Those changes required that if an employee spends more than 20% of their time lobbying, they have to register with the government as a lobbyist, detail their travel with lawmakers, and more fully outline their contributions to politicians and their myriad foundations.

But many lobbyists responded to those changes by just changing their title or calling their lobbying... something else. We've examined, for example, how Comcast's top lobbyist David Cohen shifted his title to "Chief Diversity Officer" in order to skirt around that 20% restriction. Cohen often can frequently be seen holding press junkets heralding Comcast's altruism because it offered some discounted broadband connections to the poor to get its NBC Universal merger approved. But the lion's share of Cohen's time is spent lobbying local lawmakers during these junkets.