Karlin Lillington looks at the Uber files and what it says about the effectiveness - or otherwise - of rules in Ireland to ensure lobbying of government is transparent
One of the more bizarre emerging details was that Uber managed to get, apparently via Moran, some lines it had scripted about the so-called “sharing economy” into the 2016 Fine Gael election manifesto. “Sharing economy” has a deceptively warm and positive sound, in contrast to its other name, the gig economy, which more accurately marks the insecure, benefits-free, vulnerable short-termism of this form of casual work.
Tech lobbying in the 1990s to the early noughties was small-scale stuff. Microsoft only spent $2 million on all its US lobbying in 1997, despite being one of the most valuable global companies. Losing the huge antitrust case brought against it by the US department of justice not long afterwards changed the entire tech industry lobby landscape, as companies began to prioritise political influence.
“This makes tech the biggest lobby sector in the EU by spending, ahead of pharma, fossil fuels, finance and chemicals,” it says. A third came from just 10 tech companies: Vodafone, Qualcomm, Intel, IBM, Amazon, Huawei, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google.
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