Webinar: Big tech lobbying in Brussels

[Update: The presentations by EDRi and Corporate Europe Observatory are available as pdf files (EDRi pdf; CEO pdf)]

Big tech firms are spending more and more money on lobbying in Europe – a clear sign of the industry’s growing power. The increased lobby spending also reflects the significance of upcoming political battles. Nevertheless, the lack of transparency remains a problem.

Silicon Valley giants – such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook or Apple – are among the biggest single donors of lobby money in Brussels. Their lobbying declarations show that together they have spent €21 million lobbying the EU.

Recent reports have revealed Google’s aggressive and non-transparent lobbying strategy. A leaked strategy paper by Google clearly shows how vehemently the internet platform wants to prevent pending regulations, such as the Digital Services Act.

Google, Facebook & Co. go all out and rely not only on direct lobbying but also on indirect tactics via non-transparent think tanks or associations of small and medium-sized enterprises to conduct covert lobbying. Moreover, some shady organisations have recently appeared on the Brussels scene, such as the Center for Data Innovation, which is linked to a think tank in Washington, D.C. and supported by Google, but publicly masquerades as a foundation.

This and more will be discussed by me and my colleague Daniel Freund, together with our guests, on 2 February from 18:00 to 19:30. The event will be held mainly in German, with live translations into German for the presentations by our English speaking guests.

Register here.

Speakers:

• • Margarida Silva, researcher and campaigner at Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), a lobby watchdog that challenges the power of corporations and their lobby groups over EU policy-making
• • Jan Philipp Albrecht, Minister for Energy, Agriculture, Environment, Nature and Digitalisation of the Land Schleswig-Holstein and former rapporteur for the general Data Portection Regulation

• • Chloé Berthelemy, Policy Advisor at European Digital Rights (EDRi)
• • Alexander Fanta, Journalist and Brussels Correspondent for netzpolitik.org
  • Vitor Teixeira, EU Political Integrity Coordinator, Transparency International (TI).