Google’s CEO goes through the dust after a leaked document reveals the company plans to hold back EU regulations, including attacking EU Commissioner Thierry Breton.
The presentation in question leaked late last month and included a 60-day plan from Google to remove “unreasonable restrictions” and “change the tone”, among other things.
This concerns the Digital Services Act. New legislation that imposes more rules on major internet players.
But also European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton is seen as a target. It was (or is) the ambition of Google to give it more headwinds and to ensure that support for such regulation diminishes.
For example, the plan was to look for a European ally in Booking.com, among other things, although the latter has now announced that it will not participate.
It has been known for some time that large companies like Google lobby to bend legislation. But it is extremely rare that a plan is leaked and that Google wants to weaken key figures actively.
Due to the incident, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has now apologized to Breton. In a virtual meeting late last week, he said, according to Financial Times sources, that such practices “are not the way we work.”
Pichai takes responsibility but insists that he himself had never seen the document or had such a plan drawn up.
