"Article by article, how Big Tech shaped the EU’s roll-back of digital right"

In a new analysis by Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl, we trace Big Tech's fingerprints on the Digital Omnibus proposals - a major deregulation of EU digital laws including the GDPR and the AI Act. They are helped in this attempt by the Trump administration and the European far right. [...]

To show the extent of Big Tech’s influence on the Digital Omnibus, we compared the Commission’s proposals with the lobbying positions from Big Tech and its associations. 

The proposals in the Digital Omnibus concern both data protection and rules for AI. While the EU mistakenly speaks of benefits for European corporations, it is clear that weak digital rules strengthen the power of Google, Microsoft, Meta etc, thereby jeopardising the goal of becoming more independent from Big Tech and the US. 

In the past, Big Tech has repeatedly spread the one-sided lobbying message that data protection hinders economic growth and innovation, especially with regard to AI. This includes exceptions for SMEs and a fundamental focus on making more use of data instead of protecting it.

Tech companies are spreading these messages with a record-breaking lobbying budget, a huge lobbying network, and support from the Trump administration. The digital industry’s annual lobby spending has grown from €113 million in 2023 to €151 million today – an increase of 33.6 percent in just two years.

Now, the European Commission appears to be bowing to this lobbying pressure and adopting key lobbying messages from Google, Microsoft, Meta and their many lobby organisations in its Digital Omnibus. 

Here we break down these industry lobbying messages, how they have been adopted by the Commission as proposed text changes, and what the real world impacts could be. [...]

But while the Social Democrats in the Parliament called the digital omnibus unacceptable deregulation, far right parties quickly came to the support of the Commission.

Big Tech lobbying of the European Parliament also shifted in higher gear. Lobbying of the far-right seems to have become a particular priority for Meta, and to a lesser extent Google. While during the previous parliamentary mandate, Meta only met once with a far-right MEP, during this parliamentary mandate it has already met 38 times with MEPs from the ECR, the Patriots and the Europe of Sovereign Nations Group. The digital omnibus is a key priority in those meetings. In the week of 8 December 2025, Meta met with four far right MEPs with most of those meetings mentioning the digital omnibus. 

Google has also not shied away from meeting far-right MEPs. A few days after the launch of the digital omnibus, the Head of Public Affairs of Google France joined a dinner party in Strasbourg hosted by six French MEPs from the far right Rassemblement National. [...]

However, this outcome is not inevitable. The European Parliament now has a crucial opportunity to stop this dangerous proposal and defend the hard-won data protection safeguards.

The Digital Omnibus has received massive pushback, from civil society organsations, from within parliament and from member states, including Malta, which recently requested more time to scrutinise the proposal.

What happens next depends on whether we manage to increase the pressure. 

Now is the time to make our voices heard and make it crystal clear to the European Parliament and national governments that they must stand up for our privacy, freedom of expression and democratic control over technology, and reject the Digital Omnibus.