TEKNOPOLIS
A Personal Account — And Warning — On Big Tech’s Tentacular Powers In Europe’s Capital City
LAST AUTUMN, I stepped over a graffiti as I went for lunch with a friend in Brussels, Europe’s capital city. “The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men”, somebody had written, quoting Plato, outside the Berlaymont, the imposing butterfly-shaped building hosting the European Commission.
A wink from the pavement, quite appropriate I thought, as Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen flew into town to tell her tale of the company’s misdemeanours. It also prompted me to write out my own thoughts and experience with the ‘Big Tech’ platforms over the past twelve years of EU policymaking.
In my view, the Brussels policy community has been, and still insidiously is, in the grips of this class of corporates, the biggest the world has ever seen.
EXPOSÉ. The tide is seemingly turning against Google and Facebook. From UN Secretary-General António Guterres to Barack Obama, we now hear strongly worded warnings about the harm Big Tech is doing to society. In Brussels, ground-breaking new legislation aiming at cutting down their market abuses, data capture and surveillance infrastructure is voted through with overwhelming majorities. With this comes the impression that democracy is finally getting the upper hand.
I fear that it is not, or at least, not in every way it should.
Today, most think of tech regulation in terms of enforcing a stricter competition regime on ‘gatekeepers’, drawing up rules against privacy-invading platforms or setting ethical standards for Artificial Intelligence. I contend that it must also be understood as a struggle against the efforts of an active, calculating and interfering industry to influence public institutions, civil society and policy discourse, often through underhanded means.
As the EU debated the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) package, front groups and other forms of hidden lobbying were swarming. I dare say never before had Brussels seen efforts at such a scale and with such brazenness. Many of practices deployed are not only totally out of line with the established code of conduct in interest representation but also with the most basic ethical and behavioural principles in society.
As public scrutiny and research uncovered in the case of ‘Big Tobacco’, outsized vested interests create ecosystems of thought and influence to manipulate civil society and policymakers.
At this point, Big Tech’s interference strategies need to be systematically monitored, and actions taken to counter them. The EU’s capacity to act in defence of fundamental interests starts with the independence and transparency of EU institutions but requires also a wider societal ecosystem of tech control.
If I Sound Angry, It’s Because I Am
Aside from climate change and the return of war on Europe’s continent, little makes me more worried and sad, as a father of two little girls, than the lack of transparency and democratic control over the direction of technological change. The intersection between technology and our societies’ capacity to regulate and define fundamental interests seems steadily weaker, while there’s no shortage of cynicism in the pursuit of technological profit.
In 2016, then Google CEO Eric Schmidt told us to “Stop Freaking Out about Artificial Intelligence”. Now, the ex-Google CEO has changed his tune and speaks of naiveté, foolishness and “not making the same mistake again” with regard to some of the technologies he was previously in charge of.
Gone is the illusion that what Silicon Valley is playing with is human-centric progress. Behind the rhetoric of public action, our technological futures have slipped from democratic control.
Don’t misunderstand, there is no real mea culpa. But Schmidt now deigns to inform us, mere mortals, as he released his book on artificial intelligence with Henry Kissinger, that humans “are going to have to co-exist” with AI systems in a world of possible “AI-enabled wars” and “AI-enabled best friends to our children”.
Surely, this must be what Elon Musk called the ‘summoning of the demon’. It is as if the veils are slowly being lifted, one by one. Gone certainly is the illusion, hitherto maintained, that what the wizards — or wizards’ apprentices — in Silicon Valley are playing with is unquestionably human-centric progress.
Already today, through the algorithmic manipulation of what we see and know, social media machines have taken enormous — in every sense of the word — control over our cognitive and social lives. Frances Haugen did not tell us an abstract or far-away story but rather something we should all relate to. From friends and family, I hear how their teenage girls suffer in the fake world of Instagram, some struggling with depression, while other platforms facilitate boys’ bullying and stoke feelings of impotence and frustration.
Big Tech has given itself the right to monitor us, manipulate us, and even harm us to boost its click-based revenues. From Cambridge Analytica, their emotional contagion experiment to the selling of smoking, alcohol and weight loss ads to children, the list of Facebook affronts over the years is seemingly never-ending.[1] What Frances Haugen added was simply the confirmation that the company, newly rebranded as Meta, still aims to lead the tech pack in reckless profit-maximising strategies.
Plainly said, despite the rhetoric of public action, our technological futures have, over the past two decades, slipped from democratic control. To anger, this adds a feeling of defencelessness. What can one do? Is it all the game now, as it seems, for ‘technological singularity’ mavens and profit hunters in Silicon Valley, not to mention the military and social engineers of the Chinese Communist Party?
In fact, what’s equally upsetting is that much of this is the result of our own regulatory forbearance, omission and incapacity to act. The tech platforms’ strength is not built only on innovation and financial power. If they’ve taken control, it’s also because we’ve let them.
What’s so upsetting is that much of this is the result of our own forbearance and incapacity to act. Trillion-dollar empires allowed to build up on micro-targeted advertising reaching into our personal data.
The lack of adequate national, European and international tax frameworks has allowed Big Tech to maximise their giga-profits with no or little return to society. The ‘Big Five’ — Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft — recently had a combined market value of over $9 trillion, with Amazon and Apple each alone holding more wealth than the GDP of 90% of the world.
EU competition law, allegedly their greatest fear, has patently been applied either too apprehensively or ineffectively. Year after year, we’ve heard Big Tech’s remonstrations against suggestions of anti-competitive behaviour and monopolistic powers. Yet there is something undeniable now about their dominant positions. Profit margins as high as Google’s and Facebook’s — hovering around 30% for years — should be prima facie evidence they are not facing proper competition.
And if the incapacity to set limits wasn’t enough, some of their current entitlements were also positively granted. While building their trillion-dollar empires on micro-targeted advertising reaching into our personal data, the platforms were also given and have held for over 20 years, following the US example, a privileged status as “neutral” content distributors with significant liability exemptions in EU law. Only on copyright and press freedoms has Europe held its own after major internal battles.
So why has Europe not been capable of standing up for itself?
At first, there’s the inescapable feeling that we’ve let much of this happen because these are American companies. Would we have let the tech platforms’ abusive behaviour, disruption and reach into our societies go this far had they been European? I think not. As US companies, we have both revered and feared them, and they’ve benefited from the backing of successive US administrations, from Bush and Obama till now, with which we have not dared to fight.
For European citizens, that’s a bitter by-line. But Big Tech did not escape the public interest test and control mechanisms of our democratic institutions only by being American. Today, as the EU must right the wrongs in platform regulation — and fight vital battles in framing “human-centric” AI — the self-examination must look deeper.
What gave Big Tech the regulatory permissions and commanding presence in Europe? Brussels has some tough questions to ask itself.
Central to this story, and to what we should be asking ourselves about the future of our democracies, there is a question of capture.
What influence has Big Tech held in the Commission, the European Parliament, in member states and national parliaments over the past 15 years? Through what methods have platforms lobbied decision-makers to challenge legislation or, crucially, to choke or orient it upfront? How much of this lobbying has been open, transparent and accounted for, and conversely, what has been going on under the surface?
What have been the practices of hospitality and indirect influence? What role have so-called third-party techniques, such as hiring “independent” experts, pushing front groups, or manipulating citizens for their cause, played? What means have been used to influence commentary, think tanks and academia, or even counter critics? And crucially, did some of this, over the years, contribute to a laissez-faire ideology, or to directly or surreptitiously framing public policy, institutions and politicians at critical moments?
I cannot answer all these questions. But I can provide an account of where I have encountered the tech platforms in Brussels policymaking over these years. It is necessarily a personal and circumstantial account. Still, I want to suggest that central to it, and to what we should be asking ourselves about the future of our democracies, there is a question of capture.
The EU Commission: From Permissions to Capture?
MY personal story with the tech platforms begins in 2010 when I arrived at the European Commission as a junior member of then internal market Commissioner Michel Barnier’s close team of advisors.
Coming from ministerial teams in Paris, for me, the European Commission’s Berlaymont-headquarters was the Camelot, a near-mythic force of public policy for Europe, armed with regulatory powers to take on the unruly interests of the globalised economy. At the time, I remember, the secretary-general of the Commission fretted about too much inexperience in the ranks of the commissioners’ teams. I was 29, and she was right of course: too little did I know about the world of European policymaking and lobbying.
After a couple of years working on procurement reform, I was given responsibility in the commissioner’s team for digital single market issues and IPR, including copyright reform. The centrepiece of EU digital single market legislation was then, and still is, the ‘e-Commerce Directive’ from 2000. Its genesis is worth a slight detour.
The idea that Internet = neutral = democracy was catchy and easy to believe for policymakers and the general public alike.
In 1996, ‘Section 230’ of the American Communications Decency Act came into force giving ‘computer service providers’ immunity from liability with regard to 3rd party content they distribute. ‘The 26 words that created the internet’, as it has been dubbed, was not only an epoch-making piece of legislation but a product of its time: the deregulation agenda and free-market enthusiasm, with libertarian tilts, that ran from Reagan to Clinton.
Yet in the long history of US communication regulation, ‘Section 230’ was an anomaly. Through successive technological revolutions from the telegraph and telephone to radio and TV, US regulation had largely upheld (not without fights) a double principle: the protection of privacy in ‘one-to-one’ settings and the imposition of responsibility and liability in ‘one-to-many’ communications. This time, no more.
Whether by mindless imitation, lobbying or simply because of early days of internet enthusiasm — likely a mix of all three — Europe ended up following the American example. In 2000, the US rule became the EU’s e-Commerce Directive’s Articles 12 to 14, appositely named the safe harbour provisions: service providers were given immunity from liability for the information they transmit and host.
On both sides of the Atlantic, these limited liability rules quickly gained near totemic importance. The idea that Internet = neutral = democracy was catchy and easy to believe for policymakers and the general public alike. But as the internet grew, these liability exemptions found a steadily wider range of applications, from search engines to e-commerce platforms and social media, all now playing a determining role in our social and economic life.
There was no doubt by the early 2010s that the EU’s e-Commerce Directive mobilised enormous corporate interests and put broader public standards into play. The liability exemptions were seen by many as deeply problematic. In the Barnier cabinet, we would regularly have stakeholders coming in — from law enforcers to rightsholders and campaigners concerned about harmful content online — arguing against the platforms’ self-regulation and for more accountability in the online public sphere including a principle of ‘duty of care’.
After all, isn’t ‘duty of care’ a fundamental tenet of the social contract? And, more specifically, by what logic would publishers and broadcasters be liable and responsible for everything they distribute, whereas online platforms transmitting far more content, reaching far more people, making far more money from it, would not?
A full explanation must also look at how Google built direct links into European governments, such as in the UK.
I have often asked myself why it took the EU over two decades to fully own up to and act on the mounting evidence of problems. Over the years and in the preparation to the DMA/DSA package, even major commercial platforms stood forth and spoke out for more accountability in content distribution.
- “We believe businesses should take responsibility for the content on their platforms, and any regulations should take into consideration the service-providers’ distribution framework and editorial function” (Apple, Ireland)
- “Proposals should distinguish between digital platforms posing a genuine risk to freedoms and those that are merely marketplaces.” (Deliveroo, UK)
- “To clarify and upgrade the liability and safety rules for digital services, Match is in favor of a general duty of care that is supported by obligations of means.” (Match Meetic, OKCupid, Tinder, US)
Why then the indecisiveness in the years past? Finding the balance between an open internet economy, the protection of fundamental freedoms and the accountability of its main actors is complex. Europe’s consumer organisation, BEUC, for example, was ambivalent to significant legislative reform for several years, all the while acknowledging the growing problems.[2]
In Brussels, a laissez-faire ideology dominated when it came to tech regulation. And there was a lot of so-called ‘motivated belief’: people wanted to trust that tech is progress, that its leading companies were benevolent, and that the US regulatory model was one to emulate.
But there were also opposing views and power struggles inside the European Commission and between EU member states. In the second term of a still very liberal-minded Barroso Commission (2010–2014), Barnier had to choose his battles, and this one was close to a taboo.
At the time, the platform economy was vigorously defended by Neelie Kroes, in charge of the powerful Directorate-General for Communication networks, content and technology (DG Connect) and a formidable opponent of Barnier.
A full explanation must also look at how platform-friendly EU member states, like the UK, privileged strong transatlantic ties and interests. Google had direct links to the Cameron-Clegg coalition government, at staff and top level. Incredible as it now sounds, Google CEO Eric Schmidt acted as an advisor to David Cameron both during his election campaign and well into his premiership. In a single market agenda where the UK was both a thought leader and significant stakeholder, what London thought and said mattered. In Brussels, Google’s influence in London was close to a ‘fact on the ground’ to be taken into account.
As an epilogue to this period and its many influences, when retiring from the Commission in 2014, Kroes would go on to join company boards of US tech companies Uber and Salesforce, all the while spearheading a Dutch effort towards more homegrown start-ups. Nick Clegg is now, of course, Meta’s president of global affairs, having made the jump to Facebook when he lost his seat in the House of Commons in 2017. José Manuel Barroso became chairman of Goldman Sachs International in 2016, and David Cameron went on to lobby for the sprawling finance venture of another former “business adviser” at Number 10, Lex Greensill, after he left office.
All said, while these are only personal views on the debates that took place, much points to our institutions having been in the thrall of a complex web of direct and indirect influence in this period.
I have heard a first-person account of how one Vice-President asked a senior EU law enforcement official not to question Mark Zuckerberg critically on violent and terrorist content on his platforms so as to not spoil the photo op with unpleasant conversation.
Even the Juncker Commission (2014–2019), which came in with a much more interventionist mindset, did not attempt to substantially review the platforms’ self-regulation model. Under strong lobby pressure from rightsholders, its choice fell instead on copyright reform that would give press publishers powers to negotiate with the platforms.
The fascination of Silicon Valley remained strong on some members of the Commission’s executive also in that mandate. I have heard a first-person account of how one Vice-President asked a senior EU law enforcement official not to question Mark Zuckerberg critically on violent and terrorist content on his platforms when travelling together to the US. Manifestly, at that time still, the photo opportunity with Facebook’s wonderboy was too exciting to spoil with unpleasant conversation.
Back then I was a member of the Commission’s in-house think tank. I remember participating in an internal policy briefing in 2016 on harmful online content where Joanna Shields, an ex-Google and Facebook executive (now turned campaigner against child online abuse), was as clear as one could be on the limits to voluntary approaches and the need to look into the legal liability of the platforms.
The belief that the internet platforms and networks are neutral spaces was crumbling all around. Still, that was not enough to move the policy agenda against the forces of inertia, major corporate interests and the deep influences they wielded across society.
The Methods of The Brussels Tech Lobby
The ‘safe harbour’ rules were not the only internet economy battleground in the Commission in the early 2010s. Another hotly disputed area was copyright reform. In Barnier’s office, we wanted a ‘white paper’-process to prepare the debate rather than rushing to legislative reform. Kroes and her teams wanted to break things fast.
Fierce lobbying came in from all sides, and not only from the tech platforms. I remember the first interested approaches, notably from the General Counsel of one of the music industry majors, an Englishman in a three-piece suit. He said to me: “My dear Georg, what are you going to do after life in the Commission?” He said no more and didn’t nudge but then again he didn’t need to. In English understatement, it meant what it meant.
One of the most contested topics was so-called ‘user-generated content’, in short, videos posted on YouTube or similar platforms. Should the music used by YouTubers to accompany their videos be subject to copyright payments, and crucially, should the platforms be obliged to prevent copyright violations? If Europe were not to stifle creativity, user-generated content should simply be exempted from copyright, the argument as initially framed by the reformers went.[3]
“Oh yes, that could be, quite possibly it’s an astroturfing campaign”.
But faced with opposition, this debate quickly took a dark twist with allegations that free speech was threatened and even suggestions that teenagers would be hunted down in their bedrooms by rightsholders or the Commission.
The reality was more nuanced. Those who were paying the licences (and surely wanted to get rid of them) were, in fact, the platforms which were making colossal advertising profits from the content produced for free by the users. As for content filters, they had been in use on YouTube and other platforms for years already without choking off user creativity.
I don’t remember meeting YouTube directly at the time. And now that I think about it, they were in fact conspicuously absent, at least with us. By contrast, we regularly met well-organised citizens’ and stakeholder groups that came to the Commission, went around the cabinets, and canvassed members of the European Parliament. At one point, I remember thinking: who are these people? A bit of googling and it turned out that the coordinator of one of the most vocal stakeholder coalitions in Brussels, the C4C — Coalition for Creativity representing all from public libraries to digital rights organisations, was — by chance — also a consultant for Google, the parent company of YouTube.
I mentioned it a bit around me, and I was told: “Oh yes, that could be, quite possibly it’s an astroturfing campaign”. It was a concept unfamiliar to me at the time. Quoting from Wikipedia, this is how it’s defined:
« Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organisation (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported bygrassroots participants. It is a practice intended to give the statements or organisations credibility by withholding information about the source’s financial connection. The term astroturfing is derived from AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to resemble natural grass, as a play on the word “grassroots”. The implication behind the use of the term is that instead of a “true” or “natural” grassroots effort behind the activity in question, there is a “fake” or “artificial” appearance of support. »
Even if it was not, there is surely a public interest in asking if Google influenced this coalition’s campaigning.
Astroturfing and front organisations are not the only way for the industry to sway opinion in Brussels, imperceptibly. Invitations would regularly go out to EU insiders to visit Google’s offices (yes, that’s how popular they were) or to come and experience their latest innovation. The bait at the time could be Google’s self-driving car or an offer to try out a pair of ‘Google Glasses’, the would-be “ubiquitous computer” on your nose. It was the perfect, cool, lunchtime bowl of oxygen for many in Brussels keen to keep up with the new frontiers of technology. EU officials and politicians — from heads of cabinets and Director-Generals to MEPs — went by the dozen.
The bait at the time: Google’s self-driving car or an offer to try out ‘Google Glasses’. The perfect, cool, lunchtime bowl of oxygen to keep up with the new frontiers of technology.
The fun and games didn’t stop there. If it weren’t self-driving cars, it would be conferences set up with the help of consultancies at unusual spots in Brussels, homing in on fascinating science or engineering stories. The (only) one I attended showcased a German start-up inventing rovers for Mars at Brussels’ natural history museum. The happy few, who knows, might even have been invited to the Google-sponsored Singularity University (before it turned ‘for profit’), just as these days young Brussels talent is hosted by the [Eric] Schmidt Family Foundation’s ‘Schmidt Futures’ programme in the Austrian Alps.
Google’s tactic back then was as simple as they were rich: through hospitality, create a positive link, thick or thin, with as many people of power as possible. Attention to Google’s outsized own interests and underhand roles was low.
In the end, the 2010–2014 Commission mandate passed, delivering neither white paper nor copyright reform, and the file was left to Kroes and Barnier’s successors in the Juncker Commission. It was a time of change for me, just as it was for many others. I remember one of the key advisers in the European Parliament I had worked with on the copyright file was enrolled by Google in view of the further battles to come.
For my part, being out of contract with the Commission in 2015, I interviewed with half a dozen consultancies in Brussels. It provided for another glimpse into the workings of Brussels lobbying. In these interviews, most said to me something along the lines, “We are interested in your profile. We have an important client whose activities lie close to the topics you have worked on.” In a way, this is not surprising. There is not a company in Europe that is not affected in one way or another by the single market. What was more surprising was that nearly all the consulting firms I spoke to had the same major client: Google.
When money is not a limiting factor, you buy everyone.
This too is part of their tactics, I imagine. When money is not a limiting factor, you try to buy everyone. It’s a well-known client strategy in the world of law firms. A company making billions in profits doesn’t limit itself to contracting the best lawyers from one law firm to service its needs; it takes on board as many law firms as possible, even on more peripheral contracts, to make them conflicted and prevent them from working for the adversary.
For my part, I didn’t want to enter that world. I got a job first in the Commission’s in-house think tank, the European Political Strategy Centre (EPSC), before joining the Commission’s Brexit negotiating team in 2016.
EU copyright wars, however, were not over. In 2016, the Commission proposed the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Predictably, it gave rise to unprecedented controversies and public debate, relating precisely to user-generated content and ancillary rights for press publishers.
In early 2019, as the legislation was entering the final stages of debate, huge street protests took place across Europe, millions signed petitions, and members of the European Parliament were bombarded by emails warning them against agreeing to anything that would “chill” online expression and curb free speech.
Behind the copyright wars, look for the long shadow of corporate interests. On user generated content, Big Tech rallied protesters to the barricades.
Debate on deep societal issues is welcome, but it is important to look behind the uproar for the long shadow of corporate interests. Big Tech helped to rally protesters to the barricades. A few months earlier, the CEO of YouTube, Susan Wojcicki, had crassly told YouTube creators in a letter that the legislation posed “a threat to both your livelihood and your ability to share your voice […] threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs”, making it a major talking point for influencers across the world.
Eventually, the Commission prevailed in this battle, the Copyright Directive was voted through in 2019 and took effect across Europe a year ago. I leave it to others to judge on the substantiation of Google’s dramatic forewarning that it would “change the web as we know it”.
Fast-forward to now, and history, it seems, is tragically repeating itself. The DSA is a game-changing piece of legislation that will, for the first time, impose transparency on the tech platforms’ content moderation and set rules for instance on so-called ‘dark patterns’, design features that trick users into doing things they didn’t mean to. It marks the end of the platforms’ vast liability exemptions and seeming impunity.
At the same time, it’s only the first trial balloon on how to deal with the immensely complex emerging world of artificial intelligence where recommender systems now determine not only our commercial choices but also the information we get and how we see the world.
One of the battles raging around the new legislation centred on rules relating to the so-called behavioural or trackingadvertising, the pervasive tracking and profiling of users to target ads. Targeted advertising is the cash cow at the heart of the tech platforms’ business success.[4] As the Financial Times recently reported, “Alphabet [Google] finished the year with a 32 per cent jump in fourth-quarter revenue to $75.3bn […] helped by a series of artificial intelligence enhancements that had improved the underlying effectiveness of the company’s ads”.
Allegedly, it is European SMEs that depend the most on tracking ads. Yet the more you look, the more Google and affiliated interests you find in the start-up campaigns against the regulation of tracking advertising.
Determined to use the DSA to fight the comprehensive data profiling and manipulation of users, a group of members of the European Parliament organised a Tracking-Free Ads Coalition arguing for a ban or strict curbs.
Yet from an unsuspected corner, the counter mobilisation was massive. Never had Brussels seen so many active SME and start-up organisations as in the period the DSA was debated. Because allegedly, it is European SMEs that depend the most on tracking ads and who would suffer from a ban.
But let’s have a look at a couple of these organisations and campaigns. Allied for Start-Ups was a prominent voice arguing that the DSA should “not unnecessarily restrict targeted ads which are of vital importance for [its] members”. Yet who is behind Allied for Start-Ups? Its website and LinkedIn profile suggest that it is run out of California. On its 14-member strong business council sit Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Pinterest and Google.[5]
SME Connect is another organisation deserving some scrutiny. Established in 2017, it presents itself as a platform aiming to bring together SMEs and lawmakers, with 22 current members of the European Parliament active on its board. Yet that is not all that is remarkable about it. Financially, SME Connect is backed-up by what it calls its Friends of SMEs who “support SMEs in their interest to cut red tape and create a more business-friendly environment with fair competition”. So who are they? Again, no other than the magnanimous Amazon, Facebook, Uber and Google.
The research groups Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl identified SME Connect and Allied for Start-Upsamong “a number of associations ostensibly representing the interests of start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises, but that are funded by big tech and whose lobbying is in line with the interests of large digital platforms”.
And the more you look, the more Google and affiliated interests you find in the campaign against the regulation of tracking advertising.
SME Connect’s flagship activity was the Coalition for digital ads of SMEs, a campaign that argued that “new EU rules restricting targeted ad technology would put European small businesses at risk”. I had a further look at some of the coalition’s partners. The first one on the list is Danish Entrepreneurs!, which at first is difficult to find because it is called Dansk Iværksætter Forening (DIF) in Danish. Move along, nothing to see here: DIF is a well-established entrepreneur association founded in 1985. Yet wait, who is representing DIF in the Coalition? It’s DIF’s chairperson — who it turns runs a tech consultancy “in proud partnership with Google”.
Other partners include: Developers Alliance, the US-based “voice of the software developers”; Infobalt, a Lithuanian “DigiTech sector association” counting Google amongst its financial backers and board members; and Sapie, the also Google-sponsored Slovak Alliance for Innovation Economy.
Were there other front actors? Yes, plenteously: from the digital technology industry’s traditional flagbearers such as DigitalEurope, DotEurope and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) to a number of smaller, hidey-hole players.
TargetingStartups is not listed in the EU’s Transparency Register but took an active role in fighting the regulation of tracking ads. Who is behind TargetingStartups ? The same Allied for Start-Ups and Danish Entrepreneurs!, together with a host of other Google-connected actors across Europe defending tracking ads such as IAB Sverige and IAB Europe, the Swedish and European-level associations for digital marketing.
The strong mobilisation of Nordic and Danish stakeholders is a notable feature in these campaigns. At one of the coalition events, out of the four SME and civil society actors wheeled out to defend micro-targeted advertising, three were Danish, and the last one being Swedish. This is perhaps no coincidence given that both the Commission Vice-President in charge, Margrethe Vestager, and the European Parliament’s lead legislator, Christel Schaldemose, were Danish.
Who is behind the Slovak Alliance for Innovation Economy? Sapie was co-founded back in 2014 by a public policy manager working for Google in Bratislava, who is now Google’s Senior Public Policy Manager in Brussels.
Yet fighting a ban on tracking advertising was also an effort that spread out across Europe. Another start-up actor that joined the fray was the Portugal Tech League. Portugal Tech League was set up in the autumn of 2021 by a Portuguese consultancy called Beta-I which advertises on its website that it “provides [its] clients with the right solutions to their business challenges, whatever they may be”. Portugal Tech League’s advocacy is centered on the EU’s Digital Services and Artificial Intelligence Acts as well as transatlantic data-privacy questions. Its main financial backers are Microsoft and Google.
Lastly, let’s have a look at the aforementioned Slovak Alliance for Innovation Economy, Sapie. Sapie played an active role both regionally and in Brussels as the sponsor of several SME and start-up campaigns defending today’s ad business. Who is behind Sapie? Interestingly, Sapie was co-founded back in 2014 by a public policy manager working for Google in Bratislava. This public policy manager is now Google’s Senior Manager for EU Public Policy & Government Affairs in Brussels.
His LinkedIn profile publicly vaunts a decade’s work of “[building] effective coalitions” and “innovative entrepreneurial approaches to policy campaigning”. Presently his role is described as to “identify, strategically support and coordinate Google’s work with trade associations, EU think-tanks, NGO’s and other policy stakeholders […] across the EU”. In past years, it has included “coordinating international policy campaigns promoting digital innovation for SMB’s” and “[co-founding] regional Internet coalitions and associations”.
Be that as it may, there is no reason to doubt I suppose that these actors believe in the messages they carry — and they are certainly entitled to their opinions. Yet I contend that the ever-present links back to Google are also a matter of public interest.
Europe’s main business organisation, BusinessEurope, representing 40 member federations and millions of SMEs across Europe, did not seem to pick up the defence of tracking-ads as a policy priority. Neither did the European Digital SME Alliance, another organisation with what one could call a deep and real membership, representing 45,000 enterprises through 30 national and regional SME associations.
Ultimately, what Big Tech tries to do is to replace legitimate voices with their own. Such efforts are not limited to Europe, they are planetary and they are effective. In the US, it was recently uncovered that a lobbying group financed by Google and Amazon fraudulently claimed to represent thousands of US small businesses in opposing legislation that could clamp down on the tech giants.
In the end, Google and Meta, I contend, won their fight in Brussels over profiling and tracking ads.
The European Parliament pushed through a prohibition on profiling of minors and the use of sensitive data such as political and sexual orientation. But in the Commission Vice-President Margarethe Vestager, backed by a majority of member states, came down against a strict ban on tracking ads. Possibly there are merits to this middle-way. But it also means that the pith of Big Tech’s surveillance-based business model remains intact.
The Fragile World of European Think Tanks
Returning to my own story, I finally left the Commission in the spring of 2021, after 11 years, for a job at a Brussels think tank. And the tentacles of platform power proved that they are never far away.
No sooner had my move been announced than I started being contacted by consultancies and law firms asking me whether, in addition to my work with the think tank, I would be interested in a role as a ‘senior adviser’ with them for a few major clients.
“We have put together a group of media publishers to fight the new rules”, the pitch went. “It’s on behalf of Google and we help them find their way around Brussels.”
At this point, it is important to understand the basics of the Brussels ‘employment’ model: outside the institutions, few are actually employees in the places they work. Rather, most work as ‘independents’ or run their own company selling their work as a service to the primary workplace (or ‘client’), meaning they are also free to work with others. And in actual law, one should, if the contractual relationship is not to be deemed a sham and reclassified as an employment contract.
This model comes with advantages, such as lower tax and hiring costs, but it also creates precarious situations, including vulnerability to outside influence. In the world of think tanks, this vulnerability is compounded by remunerations that are low and by no means competitive with the rest of the Brussels bubble.
Approaches come in many forms. Some subtly test the ground first, for instance by asking for my opinions on current initiatives, such as the DSA/DMA package, or the Commission’s approach to artificial intelligence. Others go straight to the point.
Last spring, I was contacted by a leading Brussels consulting firm that wanted to explore whether I would be interested in a senior adviser role with them. “We have put together a group of media publishers to fight the new rules on ancillary copyright”, the pitch went. “It’s on behalf of Google and we help them find their way around Brussels.”
Surprise, surprise, a Google astroturf campaign again! This time for sure — by the consultancy’s own admission. I made my views clear and declined the offer without pushing the conversation to ask who these media publishers are. But a quick search on Google (sic) easily yields an indication of what European umbrella media publisher organisation this might be.
Think tanks are evidently part of Big Tech’s web of influence — and of industry’s in general. The world of Brussels think tanks is both coveted and fragile and is a natural target as game-changing regulation is being discussed.
Recently, the managing director of a Brussels consultancy told me that Apple had seen the Digital Markets Act (DMA) as “potentially the single biggest regulatory threat to its business model”. When annual revenues exceed the hundred billion dollars, what then is a few million euros spent on lobbying if it can help move the regulatory goalposts?
Tech companies now top the list of Brussels’ biggest corporate lobbying spenders. When think tankers adamantly push their argument it is suspicious.
The DMA, which has now been voted through by the European Parliament, aims to oblige “gatekeepers” in digital markets to allow fair and open competition on their platforms. At its essence, this is directly at odds with Apple’s business model which is based on exclusivity and vertical integration between its products and services. Depending on how far the enforcement of the substantive rules will probe into the business models and algorithms of Google and Facebook, it’s potentially also rather bad news for them.
That is why the tech companies fight back hard and are prepared to spend to defend their realms. Tech companies now top the list of Brussels’ biggest corporate lobbying spenders. The sums are increasingly important, yet this lobbying is only the tip of the iceberg given how much now, quite evidently, goes into influencing public opinion and policymakers in both Brussels and EU member states through (targeted) advertising, and funding third parties and seemingly independent interest groups.
As an example, for the past year, Meta targeted the Brussels policy community with ads on Twitter where nice-looking entrepreneurs from across Europe explain that Facebook is no ‘gatekeeper’ but in fact the ‘market maker’ for their businesses.
When think tankers adamantly push that same argument it is suspicious. The fact is, there are think tanks where it is difficult not to see the direct influence of the Californian giants, if one is willing to look for it. This does not mean that there will not be some truth in the messages put out, such as when US mega-think tanks produce studies on how Europe’s data governance model or artificial intelligence regulation will stifle economic growth on the old continent. But it also smells of big money.
The cherry on the cake: one even told me they had been approached by Google proposing to fund a study to show that Brussels think tanks are independent. A Meta-twist, if there ever was one.
Every instrument counts when orchestrating this background music — not only the biggest brass. Smaller think tanks in Brussels can be just as valuable to Big Tech. Outfits such as the Center for Data Innovation, which has headquarters in Washington DC, appear to be microstructures implanted directly from the US to influenc EU public policy. This organisation is part of a network that lists Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet (Google) among its larger corporate supporters. Even if the think tankers believe what they write, it is those whose views align with Big Tech that will get funding, hence skewing the balance of opinions in the public sphere.
Yet I have also spoken to people having worked in think tank outfits who in private readily admit to having been used more as lobbyists than as independent thinkers. The cherry on the cake: one even told me they had been approached by Google proposing to fund a study to show that Brussels think tanks are independent. A Meta-twist, if there ever was one.
All in all, if you believe in public debates free from bias, misinformation and abuse, it makes for a disquieting picture: Members of the European Parliament that contentedly associate with Big Tech front groups, think tanks that readily echo their lines to take, and it doesn’t stop there. In private conversations, I have heard top-tier Brussels journalists uncritically repeat the Big Tech’s favoured arguments to explain why EU tech regulation is exaggerated. Yes, even the best of journalists can fall victim to well-orchestrated public relations efforts.
Let it be said finally that it’s no longer just the Californians that are weaving their webs in Brussels. Chinese companies are making their presence increasingly felt too. Recently I was contacted by a head-hunter who was recruiting help to “explore long-term cooperation with European think tanks and influential institutions (e.g. DigitalEurope, etc) to influence European industrial policy”.
“Thank you for your ongoing support” concludes the gracious invitation note signed by Huawei chairman Guo Ping.
With the accruing Chinese interest in EU policymaking also come the gifts of hospitality. For instance, every year, Huawei offers a select group of think tankers a trip to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It’s obviously an interesting event: in addition to being guided around and introduced to different executives, it’s the think tanker’s opportunity to discover and manipulate breakthrough technology from real speed 5G to VR. “Thank you for your ongoing support” concludes the gracious invitation note signed by Huawei chairman Guo Ping.
These deeper links will mostly go unnoticed in the carousel spin of policymaking. Corporate Europe Observatory has in a series of reports done a critical job in focusing on Big Tech lobbying and their webs of influence in Brussels, giving no one an easy pass. My own workplace was also criticised, among other things it had set up a panel debate on the DSA with Google which was not as balanced as it should have been.
Is this to mean that all think tanks simply follow the money? That would be a misrepresentation and caricature of a sector that is well-aware of the issues (see Gomart, Niblett, Zuleeg) Attempts at influence are by no means new with the emergence of Big Tech, and I have no reason, nor wish, to throw the Brussels think tank-scene under the bus — quite the contrary. In many places the desire for independence is real, and so is the personal integrity of most researchers.
What is aggrieving is that no think tank in Brussels today has the financial and human resources to run research programmes on tech regulation on a par with the massive societal and economic challenges we face.
Corporate funding does not in itself mean capture. Being in a financial situation where you can always say ‘no’ is one key to independence. In this regard, some of the main actors take great care in maintaining a multi-stakeholder model where there is a cap, typically between 2 and 5%, on how much a single sponsor can contribute overall. But even with precautions and the best of intentions, most think tanks face issues in building long-term efforts matching the pace and means of the broader Brussels bubble.
Besides finances, human resources are a challenge: talent tends not to stick around for very long as they get more lucrative offers elsewhere. The big corporates and consultancies snap up staff because they find people with ideas who are listened to, and who also are rather poorly paid.
If you look at the people representing the tech platforms in Brussels today, they frequently have a think tank background. Their role is not only to repeat ‘lines to take’ from California but also to soften their masters’ image by keeping up contacts and engaging on broader societal issues such as eurozone reform, migration or rule of law. Recruiting from think tanks is good value for money: it buys a name with a network and a social media following, and also the capacity to slip into the broader European policy debates.
All considered, what is aggrieving is that no think tank in Brussels today has the financial and human resources to run research programmes on tech regulation on a par with the massive societal and economic challenges we face. I see no one working in-depth on central, current-day issues such as the regulation of algorithm amplification or the use of competition law against “predatory” behaviour. I see no one having the capacity to assess new landmark proposals thoroughly or the resources to do in-depth, long-haul research that will lead the fundamental debates rather than follow them.
And ultimately, this is also part of what has allowed Big Tech to play its hand unchallenged in Brussels, for close to two decades, while building its surveillance-based business models and market dominance.
The Need for A Radical ‘Tech Control’-Agenda, Now
In all ages, humans have worried about the future, and surely on balance, for all the wicked inventions of the human mind, technological progress has been a force for good, lifting billions to better lives. I do not identify as a machine-destroying Luddite. I too, like many, find that the tech giants are fascinating creatures in their astounding success and ability to innovate, disrupt, and render new products and services subjectively indispensable.
Yet the public is also going through a collective reckoning: through their sheer size, boundless data collection, predatory business models and click-baiting algorithms, some of these companies hold our democracies, economies and social and private lives in their fangs. It is in this context that Brussels must gauge the extent of their interference also into EU decision-making itself.
I believe the evidence suggests that tech companies have operated for many years with the deliberate purpose of subverting EU efforts to address legitimate societal concerns and that this subversion has been sophisticated, resourceful, and mostly invisible.
The full scale and intricacy of the web of national, European and international, direct or indirect lobbying efforts, funding mechanisms, affiliations and front groups can only be guessed. But I believe the evidence suggests that tech companies such as Google have operated for many years with the deliberate purpose of subverting EU efforts to address legitimate societal concerns and that this subversion has been sophisticated, resourceful, and mostly invisible.
Tactics that can be inferred but are not documented are less easily recognised. That is also why I have put on paper my personal experience and thoughts, adding to those of others, not hesitating to point the finger at the big companies and their affiliates.
Yet no one in Brussels should be surprised. My experience over the past 12 years chimes well with the list of tactics set out by Google itself in a leaked memo on how they would fight the Commission’s DMA / DSA proposals and internal market commissioner Thierry Breton in particular. Judging by this and an increasing number of other accounts, Google’s playbook is more than a little reminiscent of the methods of Big Tobacco back in the day.
Taken together, these methods stand to me not only as totally out of line with the established EU code of conduct for interest representation, but as a mockery of the most basic ethical and behavioural principles in society.
Using the concepts from the World Health Organisation’s landmark study of ‘Tobacco industry interference with tobacco control’, I’ve summarised in a table what these Big Tech methods of interference can look like, focusing on the many and varied, misleading practices of Google in particular.
Taken together, they stand to me not only as totally out of line with the established code of conduct for interest representation and work with the EU institutions, but as a mockery of the most basic ethical and behavioural principles in society.
Today, most understand tech regulation as the need to enforce a stricter competition regime, rules to keep privacy-invading platforms in check and deal with algorithms. I hold that it is also a struggle against an active, organised and interfering industry. That is why I want to end this account with some reflections on the building of Europe’s ‘tech control’-ecosystem that still is, regretfully, only in its infancy.
I see five conditions of success.
First, there needs to be a recognition of the purpose of tech control and the hostile environment in which it operates. For many years, Big Tech has cloaked itself as good global citizens committed to corporate social responsibility and to fostering economic growth and societal progress. What they gained were invitations to the decision-makers table, the belief, for close to two decades, in responsible partnership, and even in some quarters, admiration.
The lesson learned from six decades of tobacco control is that industry interference is the greatest barrier to effective regulation. That is why Big Tech cannot be a partner or stakeholder at the core of its control community.
Effective regulation is, almost by definition, antithetical to the economic interests of the industry and of associated activities, entities or persons working to further its agenda. That is why Big Tech cannot be a partner or stakeholder at the core of its control community. The lessons learned from six decades of tobacco control efforts is that industry interference is the greatest barrier to effective regulation. Industry sees itself as a legitimate stakeholder, yet, even as it attempts to position itself as a partner, it will fight what stands in the way of its interests.
Second, at the heart of the control ecosystem, there need to be strong, independent regulatory powers. The EU has long prided itself in this, not least in the competition field. However, with hindsight, these powers, or their exercise, have in reality been weak. The DSA/DMA package now takes important strides forward by moving to an ex ante competition assessment of gatekeepers, menacing hefty fines, and giving the Commission strong enforcement powers within a network of competent national bodies including data protection, electronic communications and consumer protection authorities. A challenge ahead will be to avoid fragmentation.
Faced with the exponential use of complex algorithms and Artificial Intelligence across the economy, another challenge will be the relative lack of technical capacity. Big Tech has the algorithms and the datasets, public authorities do not. The EU must therefore build independent technical capacities, such as a European Union Agency for AI that can access and analyse the platforms’ data, conduct risk assessments across all social harms, prevent manipulative design techniques and algorithms, and offer users the means to redress. It should also have role in supporting national authorities with expertise and research, make recommendations to legislators and drive international cooperation.
Third, transparency and democracy in and around EU institutions are critical. The European Parliament is one of the most important EU watchdogs,[6] but the hitch lies in who controls the Parliament. Most members of Parliament indubitablytake pride in fulfilling their law-making role independently. Yet overall, the system is deficient. The European Parliament has been recalcitrant to close significant loopholes in its transparency practices.[7] Many MEPs uncritically associate themselves with industry lobby groups (as illustrated by SME Connect) and in crucial debates and votes, evidencesuggests that MEPs can be greatly influenced by direct and veiled lobbying efforts.
The EU has strong powers to investigate and prosecute fraud on its finances, but does not yet have the proper powers to investigate fraud on its democracy.
As past years have shown, at the political level the Commission can be too complacent about major societal challenges, conflicts of interest and the risk of regulatory capture. There is a strong culture of ethics and independence within the bureaucracy and the overall transparency framework is probably equalled by no other public institution across Europe.[8]But the situation is far from satisfying. Corporate Europe Observatory has made a series of proposals to improve democratic accountability at member state and EU level. In my opinion, one must at this stage question why the EU has been confered strong powers to investigate and prosecute fraud on its finances, but not yet the appropriate powers to investigate fraud on its democracy.[9] The EU transparency register must now be given investigative powers to uncover circumvention and breaches of its code of conduct.
Fourth, at this point, tech industry interference strategies need to be systematically monitored, and actions taken to counter them. The pushback against Big Tobacco was a decades-long battle, benefiting from the relentless focus of the World Health Organisation and pioneering member states. Only then well-funded public research programmes, international peer-reviewed journals, dedicated research groups and global watchdogs tracking down and exposingindustry interference emerge (see for instance STOP, Tobacco control and Tobacco Tactics).
A range of outside organisations play already today a crucial pressure function,[10] but time has come for the EU and the broader international community to take this more seriously. They need to commit to establishing the facts and data on tech industry interference and participate in developing the means and actions to counter it. Fighting interference is necessarily a protracted and resource-intensive effort, with elusive targets and significant challenges, requiring political focus and ownership at the core of our institutions.
Fifth, and finally, developing an effective ‘tech control’-ecosystem is also about nurturing alternative voices and making sure they are not captured. The EU has been there before: in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, members of the European Parliament realised that the EU institutions and its regulatory agenda had, in the lead up to the meltdown, been in the thrall of the financial sector. In response, they assisted with the set-up of Finance Watch, an NGO tasked with conducting independent research and advocacy on financial regulation in the broader interest of society.
Europe needs a Tech Watch now. Independent research capacities on tech regulation must be supported and upheld in an environment otherwise bought by those with the most money.
Now, Europe needs a Tech Watch. In an environment that is easily bought by those with the most money, independent research capacities on central themes of tech regulation must be supported and upheld. The proliferation of front groups and covert lobbying efforts in the context of the DSA is yet another alarm bell ringing. The public and policymakers need to be able to trust that there are sources of policy input that do not have the long shadow of Google and Meta hanging over them. Mobilising the support and resources to fund such an initiative is not easy, but it has been done before and it should be done again.[11]
In parallel, the ethical platform and funding possibilities of think tanks requires more attention. Today, the easy and possibly only choice for a think tank looking to finance a year of research on the EU-US tech agenda, is sadly to knock on Google or Meta’s door. It shouldn’t be this way. The disparity of means between an interfering industry and those who defend broader societal and citizen interests is growing into a threat to democracy.
Together with public authorities, philanthropy has an important role to play in ensuring that public debates are free from bias, misinformation, and abuse. In the area of climate change, the European Climate Foundation plays a vital role in mobilising funds to compensate industry interests and interference. A similar initiative would be welcome on tech issues. In return, as a condition for receiving philanthropic funding or participating in EU projects, think tanks should commit to a strict code of ethics.[12]
Afterthought
I thought I should end this account with the question of evil, as that was the interrogation on the pavement that set off my own examination.
Is Google evil?
Well, at a different time, Nietzsche wrote somewhere that one should not blame the big birds of prey for eating the little lambs. Or suggest they are evil and the little lambs good. It would be as absurd to ask a bird of prey not to kill as it would be to ask a lamb to kill.
The moral charge is indeed superfluous, this is a question of incentives, of systems, of the organisation of our society. If we want technology to be focused on the needs and wants of human beings, we must put its development under the control mechanisms of a democratic and open society, properly protect privacy and competition and avoid the impersonation of humans by machines. In other words, we must both blunt the talons of the big birds of prey, and protect the little lambs.
If there is a silver lining, it is that society has not given up. There is an awakening and fight back at different levels, both in the US and in Europe. The ‘independent tech’ community is no longer a lone fringe voice in its concerns about the hollowing out of privacy and decency, as it was for many years. Individual businesses squeezed for profits or out of the market by the great ‘gatekeepers’ are being taken seriously by competition authorities and legislators.
The realisation that something is fundamentally wrong has become mainstream, and attempts to do something about it is at the core of the EU agenda. As it has now been finalised, the DSA/DMA package will not catch up with 20 years of laissez faire regulation. But it is an important new start.
At the same time I don’t want to let Big Tech off the hook so easily. Let me therefore end by sharing a thought with the multitude of individual actors that work there, in affiliated businesses, or in related lobbying activities. I know that by writing this piece I will be accused, if not of slander, certainly of virtue-signalling, so I might just as well close on a moral stance.
As a student back in the early 2000s, I remember being stung by Hegel’s apparent mockery of Diderot’s storyteller in Le Neveu de Rameau for presenting itself as an “honest soul”, whole and sincere. Of course, sadly, Hegel is right. In the doings of man and march of history, or what we would broadly speaking call life and politics today, there are no clean hands. We all have our interests, backgrounds and fault lines.
In life and politics, there are no clean hands. But citing Camus, there are always lines to be drawn in the name of an ethical stance, which ultimately protects human dignity from the allure of morally compromised “progress”.
Still, there can be little doubt that we stand on the frontline of yet another confrontation between the individual and his freedoms, and forces driven by ideology, greed and the desire for power. And I cannot help thinking then of another of my early heroes, Albert Camus. Crossing swords with Sartre on one of the biggest political question of their time, that of communism, Camus’ moral stance on agency and personal choice against the system bears hearing again in our current situation:
No matter how finite and fallible the individual: there are always lines to be drawn in the name of an ethical stance, which ultimately protects human dignity from the allure of morally compromised “progress”. [13]
[1] Facebook’s cynical pursuit of profit through intrusive or dangerous technologies is far from over. A few months ago, Facebook announced it would delete 1 billion ‘faceprints’ it had collected after paying $650 million to settle a US class-action lawsuit. Less noticed was the confirmation that Facebook’s parent company Meta would continue controversial facial recognition activities.
[2] In its reply to the Commission’s 2010 public consultation on the future of the e-Commerce Directive, BEUC’s headline message was “BEUC is opposed to any revision of the e-Commerce Directive and calls instead for a clarification of some of its provisions with the aim of enhancing legal certainty.”
[3] For an overview of arguments, see for instance: https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/user-illusion-ideological-construction-user-generated-content-ec-consultation#footnote13_l10dptr
[4] For an insightful account, read Corporate Observatory Europe’s How corporate lobbying undermined the EU’s push to ban surveillance ads.
[5] Some Allied for Start-Ups staff run a spin-off campaign called Digital Future for Europe. Digital Future for Europe is not registered in the EU’s mandatory lobby register despite quite evidently seeking to have an impact or overturn EU policies. I could not identify any of its sources of financing. Amongst other proposals, Digital Future for Europe argues for the opening-up of public sector dataset and the conduct of an “AI refit” to review the EU’s (protective) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
[6] The European Parliament holds the Commission (and other institutions) to account through written and oral parliamentary questions, carries out scrutiny of the Commission’s work programme, and has the power to set up temporary committees of inquiry as well as to present a motion of censure (vote of no confidence) against the Commission.
[7] To this day there is no mandatory registration of who MEPs and their staff speak to, no institutional attempt at monitoring where amendments come from, and no detailed scrutiny of outside financial interest.
[8] If anything, one could ask whether the formalities involved are not, on occasions, a hindrance to regulatory efficiency when staff in resource-constrained departments spend excessive amounts of time on clerical tasks such as recordkeeping and on providing answers to ‘access to documents’ requests.
[9] The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
[10] Amongst others: AlgorithmWatch, Amnesty Tech, Corporate Europe Observatory, European Digital Rights (EDRi), Global Witness,LobbyControl, and Transparency International. There are also vivid ‘independent tech’ communities that provide interesting contributions, such as ind.ie.
[11] Finance Watch’s financing is made up of a mix of EU funding, project-based financing from public utility foundations, and members fees. Note that there are budding initiatives also in tech. The German justice ministry has provided €4.5 million of start-up capital for the launch of The Center for Trustworthy AI as a collaboration between think tank iRights.Lab, research institute the Fraunhofer Society and the Free University of Berlin. The goal is to define “trustworthy” AI standards together with civil society, industry and academia.
[12] For a discussion of this, see Fabian Zuleeg’s An ethical framework for think tanks: Easier drafted than done?.
[13] I have taken this beautiful sentence encapsulating Camus’ life and thought from Benedikt O’Donohoe’s Revolution or Revolt? Les Mains Sales and Les Justes.
DISCLAIMER/ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The views expressed are solely my own and do not represent those of former or current employers, nor of people I have worked with or am working with. I am nonetheless grateful to the European Policy Centre (EPC) for allowing me to express my views freely on this matter, while not necessarily identifying with its content or style.
