As the EU finalizes DMA and DSA, a report reveals last minute lobbying by Big Tech to shield themselves from crackdowns on surveillance advertising and more
A new report has peeled back the curtain on big tech's frenzied lobbying of European Union lawmakers as they finalize a major series of updates to the bloc's digital rulebook. Source: Corporate Europe Observatory .
Context & Ripple Effects
EU lawmakers had already provisionally agreed the DMA’s core limits on bundling, self-preferencing and restrictions around messaging interoperability when companies shifted from trying to secure major changes to preparing for compliance. The reported push on surveillance advertising shows lobbying continuing at the point where the rules’ final boundaries were being set.
The campaign follows an earlier pattern of intensive EU outreach, including Google’s leading share of meetings with officials as policy attention moved toward antitrust. It matters because the DMA and DSA turn that contest from rule-writing into implementation and enforcement.
First-order effects
- Big Tech’s last-minute effort puts its preferred treatment of surveillance advertising and other obligations directly before EU lawmakers as the DMA and DSA are finalized.
- The companies must simultaneously prepare for compliance after their push for substantial DMA revisions failed, rather than rely on a wholesale rewrite of the framework.
Second-order effects
- DMA obligations on interoperability, bundling and self-preferencing force covered platforms to adjust product and commercial practices, creating more room for services that depend on access to platform users.
- Lobbying scrutiny raises the political cost for EU institutions of narrowing late-stage protections, making enforcement choices as consequential as the statutory text.
Third-order effects
- The episode points to EU platform governance becoming a continuing contest over implementation details: rules may be settled in legislation, but firms retain incentives to shape how regulators define and enforce them.
- Later plans for intensified DMA and DSA enforcement show the policy cycle moving from legislative lobbying toward recurring disputes between EU authorities and the largest technology companies.
The trend: EU digital regulation is shifting from drafting landmark platform rules to sustained battles over compliance, enforcement and the limits of Big Tech influence.