In the US, where rules on the disclosure are stricter, technology groups report far higher spending on lobbying. Google, for example, spent $8.85m in the first half of 2014 alone in the US – nearly four times what it said it spent lobbying the EU for the whole of 2013. Google declined to comment on this article. But its efforts in Europe are part of its “soft power” approach towards influencing policy makers.

In May 2012, the law school at George Mason University hosted a forum billed as a “vibrant discussion” about Internet search competition. Many of the major players in the field were there — regulators from the Federal Trade Commission, federal and state prosecutors, top congressional staffers.

After hearing Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s promise the Knesset this week that his government would support Israel “though fire and water,” one could excuse Israeli lawmakers for thinking that they had died and gone to hasbara heaven.

In the spirit of the season, let me hazard a prediction: 2014 will be the year that America’s Israel debate begins to pass the organized American Jewish community by. The first reason is the end of the American-dominated peace process. Despite John Kerry’s best efforts, the most likely scenario is that 2014 will be the year he fails.

A top international law firm that was ordered by the Qatari government to conduct an "independent review" into allegations of modern-day slavery at World Cup construction sites is also a paid lobbyist for an arm of Qatar's Al Jazeera television network, The Telegraph can disclose. DLA Piper has received more than $300,000 (£186,000) in lobbying fees this year from Al Jazeera America according to official filings in the US, raising questions over whether it could conduct an unbiased assessment into allegations that have cast a pall over preparations for the 2022 World Cup.

The Egyptian government has returned to K Street. The Glover Park Group has been hired by Egypt to “provide public diplomacy, strategic communications counsel and government relations services" for the country's government, according to documents obtained by The Hill. The lobby and communications firm filed those records with the Justice Department on Friday.

The United States will not be able to maintain its global advantages if the country fails to craft policies that maximize information-age soft and hard powers.... But before defining an ideal high-tech foreign economic policy, one has to recognize that, as often as not, the sources of most policy lay in particular economic interests.

Even non-resident Indians (NRIs) in the USA somehow influence the US citizens by projecting Indian power in the South Asian region. They use soft power i.e. colorful culture of India like yoga, films, and India shining publicity which covers up the rampant poverty, hunger, crime, human rights abuses especially in Kashmir and Naxalite-Maoist areas, Muslim massacre in Gujrat and Christian massacre in Orisa etc