Tech

The European Commission rebranded AirBnB lobbying documents as ‘commercial secrets’ and therefore denied public access. After eight months of wrangling over their release, Corporate Europe Observatory can report the documents show that AirBnB and similar rental platforms are attacking measures used by cities to protect affordable housing.

Industry lobbyists who want to continue monetising users’ online data are battling against new ePrivacy regulations, targeting EU member states in the Council. And some member state governments are only too happy to help.

Following the Cambridge Analytica affair and the massive leak of 87 million people’s data revealed earlier this year, Facebook is facing unprecedented scrutiny of its business model. Regulators must stop treating the social media giant as a trusted partner and better protecting EU citizens' digital rights.

AirBnB and its allies are lobbying the EU to fight measures to protect affordable housing in cities across Europe. Our new report “UnFairbnb” looks at the way in which their Brussels lobbying undermines cities’ ability to regulate the AirBnB model for holiday rentals.

MEPs are about to determine how secure our data is when we are online in this week's vote on ePrivacy Regulation. For the past 16 months, industry lobbies, including all those who commercially use personal online data, have been vigorously opposing new proposals on ePrivacy, while digital rights campaigners demand optimum data privacy for citizens online.

When the EU’s 'Roam like at home' policy kicks in next week, it will be widely portrayed as a success story by EU leaders. But behind the scenes, a faction of member states absorbed the interests of their telecom companies, and secured compromises which have led to roaming becoming more complex and weaker than it might otherwise have been.

Members of the copyright industry and their political allies are fighting proposed copyright exceptions. For the 285 million blind and visually impaired people globally, such exceptions would provide better access to a wider range of print publications.

The latest revelations about ‘Steelie’ Neelie Kroes show that, when it comes to ethics and transparency, the Commission is complaisant about conflicts of interest and far too relaxed about the risk of corporate capture.

Amazon, also known for tax evasion and abominable working conditions, is one of a large number of companies that exploit the EU’s weak lobby transparency rules. The company is lobbying heavily to influence decision-making in Brussels but refuses to sign up to the Transparency Register for lobbyists, which is voluntary rather than mandatory.