Microsoft spends more than any other tech company in the world on lobbying the EU, if you believe the figures in the non-obligatory EU Transparency Register.

A new online tool called LobbyFacts.eu allows data from the register to be automatically sorted, compared, ranked and analysed in ways not possible through the official EU site. It calculates that Microsoft is number three in the lobbying stakes, spending €4.75m per year, behind tobacco giant Philip Morris and petrol company ExxonMobil.