Google, Microsoft among biggest IT industry lobbyists at European Commission

Google and its lobbyists have had more meetings with European Commission officials than any other company, according to figures published by Transparency International on Wednesday.With 32 meetings logged between December and June, Google’s lobbying is topped only by that of BusinessEurope, whose 67 member companies span the automotive, aviation, chemical, energy, IT and metallurgical industries. Its IT-industry members include Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, Oracle and Samsung Electronics.Other prolific corporate lobbyists include General Electric, Airbus, and Microsoft, which had 20 meetings with Commission officials during the period.Transparency International’s analysis, covering over 4,000 lobby meetings declared by top Commission officials between December and June, showed that over three-quarters of the meetings were with corporate lobbyists, 18 percent with NGOs and 2 percent with local authorities. It drew the data from the Commission’s own Transparency Register.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Continue reading at 'PC World'

[ PC World | 2015-06-25 00:00:00 UTC ]

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