Big Tech and the EU (BIT-EU)

We have become increasingly dependent on digital platforms. Only a handful of global tech firms wield the power to decide who exists in the digital realm. These gatekeepers decide what we see, how we interact and whose business reaches customers. The platform economy has an enormous impact on the way the public sphere and crucial digital infrastructures are organised. This in turn has implications for democracy and the fairness of markets, just to name a few.

Big Tech and the EU (BIT-EU) project analyzes the advocacy work of big tech firms in the EU. The project aims to understand the mechanisms and impact of the lobbying of the big tech in the EU. The project adopts a holistic view in researching the advocacy ecosystem. It asks, how does the growth in big tech lobbying shape the relationships between tech firms, knowledge producers, policymakers, and policy intermediaries in the EU? How influential is big tech in its lobbying? What do these insights tell us about the power of big tech and its intermediaries?

The key method for obtaining information is interviews. A range of actors from tech firms to policy intermediaries, think tanks, policymakers and civil servants in Brussels and beyond will be interviewed.