Exclusive | Google emails with US trade reps reveal cozy ties as tech giant pushed to hijack policy
Newly uncovered emails reveal how Google and Amazon used their access to the Office of the US Trade Representative as they sought to undermine overseas regulations — including efforts to protect traditional media outlets.In May 2023, Google tried enlist the USTR in its fight to defeat or at least water down Canada’s Online News Act, which took effect last December.
The law requires Google and Facebook parent Meta to pay publishers for the right to display their content online.Meta exited Canada in response.That month, Google’s head of trade policy Nicholas Bramble emailed three USTR staffers – senior director for services and digital trade Andrea Boron, deputy assistant trade representative Robb Tanner and director for Canada Randall Oliver – to request a meeting on “upcoming developments on Canada.”The USTR granted the request for a meeting, which took place just four business days later, the emails show.
On June 5, the USTR’s Boron thanked the Google staffers for their time and asked them to share “Google’s public comments” detailing objections and concerns about the Online News Act.Bramble responded with links to a “list of key concerns and proposed amendments” that Google provided to Canadian lawmakers.The private email exchange provides a glimpse of what the group describes as a “shadow war” by Big Tech firms to “hijack US trade policy” for their benefit – in part by maintaining a “revolving door” relationship with the key federal agency, Demand Progress, a nonprofit advocacy group, said in a report on the emails.The Canada documents included a transcript of public testimony in which Google vice president of news Richard Gringas warned that the company would “reconsider” offering news content in Canada if the law took effect.Google also offered an opinion piece by the Financial Times which argued in favor of “other, less confrontational solutions.”The messages were part of a tranche of emails between Google and...