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 ]
Philip Pullman has warned that the European Commission should consider falling author income as part of its investigation into Amazon's ebook business. The author warned The Bookseller that the investigation, announced yesterday (11th June), was failing to take the role of the author into... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The trade has welcomed the European Commission’s investigation into Amazon’s ebook business, with publishers, agents and booksellers calling for a fairer digital marketplace for books. Richard Mollet, c.e.o of The Publishers Association, added: “For some time now we have been calling on... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The UK Booksellers Association has taken a lead role in pressing for a regulatory investigation into Amazon, The Bookseller can reveal. The association submitted a dossier to the Competition and Markets Authority last November about Amazon’s “domination” of the UK market, which it believes paved... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The European Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation into the way Amazon distributes ebooks and its relationship with publishers. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon.com’s ebook distribution deals are coming under close scrutiny from the European Commission, which has begun a formal antitrust investigation into the company’s contracts with publishers.The probe will focus on clauses in Amazon’s contracts that require publishers to tell the company... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2015-06-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The move continues a trend of cracking down on the operations of major tech companies in Europe.In recent months, European regulators increasingly have been scrutinizing the practices of U.S. tech giants that dominate their respective industries, focusing their investigatory efforts on Amazon,... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2015-06-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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"Vested interests" profiting only a few will attempt to hold up the reform of copyright, Andrus Ansip, vice president for the digital single market (DSM) at the European Commission, has said. Speaking at the European Digital Forum in Brussels yesterday (1st June), Ansip said that copyright... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The European Commission has a grand plan to create a single market for digital content across all the member states of the EU, so it can be bought and sold without barriers such as the administrative burden of different VAT rates. The creation of that market will help entrepreneurial start-up... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Booksellers Association has said it hopes the European Commission’s competition inquiry into the e-commerce sector will look specifically at market dominance in ebooks. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The European Commission has announced an antitrust competition inquiry into the e-commerce sector in the European Union, as part of 16 initiatives on a digital single market to be delivered by the end of next year. The inquiry “will allow the Commission to identify possible competition concerns... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The European Commission is today (6th May) set to reveal plans for the “digital single market”, to remove barriers to online services across Europe. The plans would mean that customers across the European Union could all access the same digital services and products, including ebooks and... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The French, German, Italian and Polish culture ministers today released a joint statement calling for the European Commission to propose immediately legislation to allow VAT on ebooks to be levied at the same reduced rate as print books. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-03-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The European Court of Justice has ordered France and Luxembourg to restore their standard VAT rates on ebooks in a ruling announced today (5th March). The court upheld a decision previously made by European Commission, which ruled that the two countries cannot charge the same VAT rate on ebooks... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-03-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Luxembourg provided “state aid” to Amazon through its tax arrangements for the company, the European Commission has said in a preliminary finding. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-01-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Local authorities will see their spending power reduced by 1.8% on average in 2015/16, following cuts to funding by the government, but some councils could face a 6.4% reduction. The announcement comes on the same day that the funding of libraries has come under the spotlight with the release... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Reading Agency said that 839,622 children took part in the 2014 Summer Reading Challenge, a 3.6% increase compared to 2013. Sue Wilkinson, chief executive of The Reading Agency, said she was pleased that the numbers were up despite cuts to library services. “Library budgets are very tight... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-11-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publishers Association chief executive Richard Mollet has warned that the new European Commission's drive to impose a digital single market risks undermining Europe's cultural diversity and will play into the hands of US-based platform companies. Jean-Claude Juncker's new commission, which... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-11-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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An agreement between the European Commission and Google over alleged abuses of its dominant... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-09-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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News Corp, Rupert Murdoch's media behemoth, is the latest source of criticism of Google. Robert Thomson, the chief executive of the company -- responsible for the Times and the Sun in the UK as well the book publisher HarperCollins -- has written to the European Commission to complain that the... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2014-09-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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European periodical and online publishers have urged the European Commission to reject Google’s latest proposal to settle an antitrust case.The commitments proposed by Google would not stop the company’s “abusive promotion of its own services,” the publishers said in their response, sent to the... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2014-09-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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