Digital rules
EU softens tech rules amid accusations of US influence
On 19 November, the European Commission presented its digital omnibus as part of the EU’s ongoing simplification, or as others prefer calling it, deregulation, in the name of boosting European competitiveness.
The digital omnibus consists of both a simplification of the EU’s data-related laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and a delayed implementation of part of the block’s landmark AI Act. The commission’s justification for these measures is to facilitate the growth of European businesses dependent on AI or data, so they are able to catch up in the global digital race.
When it comes to GDPR, the block’s data privacy protection, the proposal is to allow pseudonymised data, meaning the use of personal data for training and tracking as long as it has been obscured so that a specific individual cannot be identified. Regarding the AI Act, the rules that the commission now suggests delaying were supposed to take effect in August next year and relate to AI uses that pose a risk to people's health, safety, or fundamental rights. Companies also get a grace period on rules for watermarking visual content made by AI. Several countries, including Sweden and Denmark, had previously called for a pause on the AI Act.
Many critics, including former EU commissioner Thierry Breton, have interpreted the digital backtracking as a concession to intense US pressure attacking the union’s digital rules. But commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier replied to this accusation, saying that the initiative is only about Europe. “On the digital omnibus, absolutely no third country had an influence on our sovereign simplification agenda”, said Regnier, according to Politico.
Next, the European Parliament and council will adopt their positions on the digital omnibus.
(Brussels is done being the world’s digital policeman)
Digital omnibus – news outlets respond with enthusiasm
Civil society groups, including privacy organisations, have responded with an outcry over the commission’s digital omnibus. In a letter, 127 organisations and unions warned it would represent the biggest rollback of digital rights in EU history.
A group that has welcomed the initiative is News Media Europe, which represents publishers of newspapers, magazines, and online news. The organisation has voiced its support for the commission’s proposal claiming that digital rules, such as GDPR, that are applied in the same way to Big Tech as to local news publishers, creates a “deeply unfair situation” and claim the omnibus “can be the tool that corrects these regulatory asymmetries that undermine, rather than help, the free press and the digital economy in Europe”.
Among the members of New Media Europe are Swedish Tidningsutgivarna, Danish Danske Medier, Finish Uutismedian Liitto, and Norwegian Mediabedriftenes Landsforening.
(Digital Omnibus: A Foundation for Modern Rules, Publishers Urge EU to Maintain Simplification Drive)
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Forthcoming Digital Omnibus would mark point of no return)
EU fines X €120 million while senior US officials protest
In a long-awaited decision, the European Commission announced on 5 December that it is fining Elon Musk’s platform X €120 million for breaching the Digital Services Act (DSA) through the deceptive design of X’s blue checkmark, lack of transparency concerning its advertising repository, and lack of researcher data access. This constitutes the first ever DSA non-compliance decision.
The commission opened a formal proceeding into X on 18 December 2023 and presented its preliminary findings on 12 July 2024. The EU’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen admitted the process has been too slow, according to Politico, and promised the commission would wrap up several other investigations into Big Tech soon.
Members of the US administration were quick to react to the decision. Vice President JD Vance wrote, on X, already a day before the announcement: “Rumors swirling that the EU commission will fine X hundreds of millions of dollars for not engaging in censorship. The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage”.
While Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote afterwards that the decision “isn’t just an attack on X, it’s an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments”.
When asked by Politico, Virkkunen replied that out of ten platforms under formal investigation because of DSA breaches, only three are US companies.
X now has 60–90 days to submit plans addressing their DSA violations to the commission.
(Top EU official promises more Big Tech decisions ‘in coming months’)
Commission opens new investigations into Google’s conduct
The European Commission has recently opened two new investigations into Google, which are relevant to media publishers.
On 13 November, the commission opened an investigation into a potential breach of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) by Google. The reason is that the commission’s monitoring has shown indications that Google is demoting news media and other publishers’ sites and content in Google search results when the websites contain content from commercial partners. According to Google, this policy aims to tackle practices that are allegedly meant to manipulate ranking in search results. But the commission is investigating whether the demotions of publishers' websites and content may impact publishers' freedom to conduct legitimate business, innovate, and cooperate with third-party content providers.
Furthermore, on 8 December, the commission also opened a formal antitrust investigation to assess whether Google has breached EU competition rules by using web publishers' content and YouTube creators' videos to power its AI services without compensating them or allowing them to opt out. Such practices could breach EU competition rules that prohibit the use of a dominant position and Article 54 of the European Economic Area Agreement (EEA).
This is the latest in a series of regulatory actions against Google by the EU. In September 2025, Google was fined €2.95 billion for abusing its dominant position in online advertising technology and $3.45 billion for antitrust violations in the ad-tech industry.
Spanish media outlets score victory against Meta
Spanish media companies scored a victory against social media giant Meta after a Madrid-based court ordered on 20 November that it must pay news outlets nearly half a billion euros in damages, reports the Associated Press.
According to the court, Meta had used an unfair market advantage by extracting personal data from their users in violation of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to create more effective advertising – a practice that harmed the online advertising revenues of Spanish digital media outlets.
Meta will have to pay €481 million in damages to the 81 Spanish outlets who brought the suit to court. According to the ruling, Meta had violated GDPR for five years, before updating its legal base of consent on gathering personal data in 2023.
The Spanish court said that its ruling could influence other legal cases in Europe, including in France where Meta faces a similar case.
(Spanish court orders Meta to pay nearly half a billion euros in damages to media outlets)
Big Tech increases EU-lobbying budgets
A new analysis, presented in October, by Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl based on the EU Transparency Register, shows that the tech industry has increased its lobbying expenditure to record levels.
The digital industry’s lobby spending has grown from €113 million in 2013, to €151 million annually today. Compared to 2021, when the first mapping of the tech industry’s lobbying in Brussels was presented, the increase is 55.6 per cent.
Big Tech companies are by far the biggest spenders in EU lobbying and make up five out of the six companies who spend the most on lobbying in Europe. The top ten digital companies are spending three times as much as the top ten spenders in the pharmaceutical, financial, and automotive industries.
Meta, who owns Facebook and Instagram, is the single largest EU lobby spender with €10 million spent yearly. Furthermore, the study shows that Big Tech companies have, on average, more than one lobby meeting per day with EU Commission officials.
(Big Tech lobby budgets hit record levels)
