Checking InfluenceWhen you shop, do you wonder where your money really goes?Checking Influence is a new tool from the Sunlight Foundation that you can use to find out how companies you do business with every day are wielding political influence through lobbying and campaign contributions. Checking Influence helps you be an informed consumer and citizen.Just add Checking Influence to your bookmarklet bar and then go to any web page that has bank transactions (wherever you do online banking, like your banking site, credit card site, or Mint.com). Then, just click on the Checking Influence bookmarklet in your toolbar.Checking Influence will find the company names in your list of banking transactions and show you the “influence data” for the corporations it can identify — including political campaign contributions and what lobbying the corporation conducted.If you’re curious about how we protect your privacy, read below. If you’re still uncomfortable trying out Checking Influence, you can find the same information by going to Influence Explorer and searching for the company whose political influence you want to check.It’s Easy to UseChecking Influence is a bookmarklet, which means you can save it to your browser’s toolbar and use it on a site later with just one click. In Internet Explorer, right-click the blue button below and choose 'Add to Favorites...'. In Firefox, Chrome and Safari, drag the button to your bookmarks bar. If you don't see a bookmarks bar you can enable it from the 'View' menu. Then just click on the bookmarklet while you're on any bank page that lists purchases.marklets.com