Three members of the European Parliament (MEPs) claim Amazon, Google and Meta provided money and direction to small-business associations to advance the U.S. firms’ positions on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA). The lawmakers also say the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and another group claimed to be acting on behalf of an unregistered startup-focused coalition. (Politico)

Talking point: The MEPs are calling for all eight organizations to be banned from lobbying. Spokespeople for Amazon, the CCIA and Google all told Politico they hadn’t done anything wrong; Meta did not respond to its request for comment. Tech giants have regularly been accused of public-policy astroturfing, or financing groups that claim to speak for nascent or small firms. The DMA and DSA would impose significant restrictions and requirements on large platforms. The CCIA has said the rules shouldn’t be segmented by company size. Ottawa-headquartered Shopify is a member, and has also registered to lobby EU officials on the two pieces of legislation as well as other policies affecting small businesses. The company did not respond to The Logic’s questions about whether it plans to remain in the CCIA.