Google, Facebook and Microsoft, followed by Apple, Huawei and Amazon are the biggest lobbyists in Europe in the fight against tougher new laws to curb the power of American tech giants, according to a study.
But a report released on Tuesday warns that technology companies may be vulnerable to "coordinated legal action" from the EU to cover their lobbying costs.
The release of the EU’s draft telecom bill last week slammed technology giants by politicians in the political arena.
The draft law seeks to prevent them from making money by selling and reselling user data to other companies and could make it easier for competitors to attack deals to swap data.
On the same day, Google, Facebook and Microsoft published joint letters, warning the European Union that Europe's strict privacy laws could make it difficult for them to do business with their customers in the region.
"The EU has a legal interest in protecting privacy and data protection," he said.
"However, in recent years we have seen a widening gap between these rules and their application, which risks reducing free and open internet."
Lobbying power
The study looked at spending by the 25 largest companies on lobbying in Brussels, the UK and across Europe.
It states that Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon together have spent more than 6 billion euros (US $ 7.4 billion) on lobbying in the last three years.
Analyzing all lobbying data between 2013 and 2017, the report found that lobbying was the most prominent on telecom laws, with Google leading the way in 2017 with a budget of more than 1.5 billion euros.
The study also found that the power of lobbying in Europe is concentrated in only the five largest tech companies, which account for almost one-fifth of the budget: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple.
This power is even greater than the economic sector, which in the study accounted for nearly 10% of the EU’s lobbying budget in 2017.
"Lobbying is becoming more relevant to the decision-making process of EU institutions and governments. This means that how lobbying is regulated, disclosure rules and transparency in terms of lobbying activities must be aligned with the fast-paced technology industry," the report said.
The European Union called for "lobbying transparency at the center of its action on lobbying" and for European money laundering organizations to be given more power to target tech companies.
The European Commission said it was "very clear" that there was a "huge imbalance" in the budget size of the Brussels-based lobbying firm, which is dominated by large tech companies.
The commission said it was in touch with these companies to discuss how transparency and lobby register rules could be improved.
But a spokesman said that, based on the commission's own investigation, the study "does not reflect the whole picture", noting that more than 50% of listed companies have not spent money on lobbying EU institutions in three years.
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