The Google case: lobbying, influence, and the silent corruption that paralyzed Europe

Europe and the United States are on the verge of a decision that could shake the foundations of the internet, according to an investigation published yesterday by the website Follow The Money, whose journalists analyzed hundreds of US court documents, European lobbying files, and testimonies from experts, lawyers, and officials involved in competition cases involving Big Tech giants. The result? A clear picture of how Google convinced the world that its success was the pure result of innovation, when, in fact, a methodical campaign of influence and control was taking place behind the scenes. That is why, the cited source mentions that authorities in Brussels and Washington are investigating the Google empire, accusing it of building its dominance not only on technological genius, but also on controversial tactics, massive lobbying, and a calculated strategy to protect its monopoly.

Today, Google is no longer just a search engine. It controls the largest digital ecosystem on the planet: YouTube, Android, the Play Store - that is, the system and applications on three out of four phones in use globally. Behind every free click, billions in advertising revenue are hidden. Google has been accused of using its own search engine algorithms to promote its services and bury competitors in irrelevant results.

"This wasn't just about our company. This was about strangling the entire next generation of innovation on the internet,” the founder of the British platform Foundem, Shivaun Raff, told the cited source. Companies such as Trivago or Yelp have come to the European Commission with similar accusations: that the engine has made them invisible.

• Years of influence and silent expansion

When, in 2010, the Commission opened its first official investigation, Google reacted calmly. Behind the scenes, however, things started to drag on, according to Follow The Money. They point out that Joaquin Almunia, the European competition commissioner at the time, was on friendly terms with Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

"He wanted to make a deal, not a fight,” lawyer Stephen Kinsella told the source.

But Google dragged out the process long enough to outlast the commissioner's term. In the meantime, the company continued its aggressive expansion: in 2007, it bought DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, an acquisition that gave it control of the digital advertising market, a veritable Nasdaq of online advertising.

US and European regulators approved the deal without really understanding the industry. "Both institutions were operating under a serious knowledge deficit,” Bill Kovacic, former chairman of the FTC, later admitted. And that lack of understanding paved the way for monopoly.

But the peace ended in 2015. The new European Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, entered the scene and the war began. In an internal memo of the Commission, the question was already being asked whether Google could still operate as a single company or whether it should be divided. At the same time, Google warned employees: "Assume that every document will become public. We are not here to crush, kill or block the competition.” Journalists from Follow The Money claim that this message was just a careful staging, a "clean” language for the eyes of investigators. The quoted source claims that, behind closed doors, the company mobilized armies of lobbyists. In 2015, no other corporation had had more meetings with the European Commission. In a decade, the number of such meetings exceeded 420, and the expenses for influence in the capital of the European Union exceeded 60 million euros. Google even used law firms that operated as "ghost lobbies,” impossible to officially track because the law did not require disclosure of clients. "They can hide the client,” sociologist Lola Avril, a researcher in the field of European lobbying, explained to the cited source.

Despite all these efforts, Margrethe Vestager has made tough decisions. In 2017, the European Commission fined Google 2.4 billion euros for favoring its own price comparison service. In 2018, a new sanction: 4.3 billion euros for abusing a dominant position by imposing the Android system on phone manufacturers. It was just the beginning.

• The new era of digital regulations

It was only with the GDPR that Europe began to understand the real weapon behind the monopoly: data.

"The importance of data was known, but it was not incorporated into the law early enough,” Andreas Mundt, head of the German competition authority, admitted to Follow The Money, adding that the analysis of digital markets can no longer be done without taking into account the power of data.

Then came the pandemic and with it the legislative counterattack. In December 2020, the Commission proposed the Digital Markets Act, a law designed to root out the abusive practices of the giants called "gatekeepers”: Google, Meta, Apple. Sundar Pichai, CEO Alphabet, reacted personally, warning Brussels that a ban on ads based on personal data would be "harmful to SMEs.” Behind closed doors, Google was developing a global PR plan: presenting the law as a threat to transatlantic relations, trying to discredit European commissioners, and mobilizing "academic allies,” or rather, company-funded researchers, to lend weight to its position.

But the law was passed in 2022, and Google became its main target.

In 2024, a US court ruled that Google had abused its monopoly in search and forced it to share data with rivals. Another ruling found that it had illegally maintained a monopoly in advertising. In Europe, the company was fined 2.95 billion euros and given time to propose significant restructuring of its advertising business. If it does not, it risks penalties of up to 10% of its global turnover, approximately 30 billion euros.

But the fight is now moving to another front: geopolitical. Journalists from the cited source say that the Trump Administration, in its second term, is playing a double role: accusing Google at home, but defending American companies from European regulations. After the latest fine, President Donald Trump described the measures as "discriminatory actions” and threatened the EU with tariffs if it continues to enforce laws "against American technology”. His trade negotiators even tried to weaken the implementation of the Digital Markets Act, but the European Commission refused.

The cited source shows that German MEP Rene Repasi, one of the co-authors of the law, responded harshly: "I expect the Commission to have a backbone too. If we are afraid of bullies like Trump or threats from Silicon Valley, we will diminish ourselves - and that would be the most dangerous signal of all”.

Behind the scenes, the most serious warning comes from the 2024 Nobel Prize laureate in economics, Daron Acemoğlu, a professor at MIT: the concentration of control over data in the hands of a few platforms is not just an economic problem, but a direct threat to democracy.

"If we do not establish the right principles regarding monopolies now, the future will be captured by more unscrupulous actors and no one will have the courage to oppose them,” said Daron Acemoğlu, according to the cited source.

Under these conditions, Google faces two threats: either it will be forced to break its empire into pieces and let the digital market flow freely, or it will escape with a huge fine, but intact, maintaining its control over the global flow of information and advertising.