TransparencyMedium
Copy, paste, govern: Microsoft ghostwrote EU policy that keeps data centers’ energy use secret
- Occurred
- Apr 17, 2026
- Published
- Apr 17, 2026
- Source
- AlgorithmWatch
Summary
The EU Commission’s policy on data centers keeps information on the energy and water use of individual centers under wraps. Research by Corporate and Europe Observatory and AlgorithmWatch, published by Investigate Europe, reveals the Commission copied and pasted an amendment suggested by Microsoft and the lobby group Digital Europe. The aim: To prevent NGOs from obtaining information on energy-hungry data centers in the face of growing resistance.
Tags
- Blog
- EU
- European Commission
- Sustainability
Classification
Category confidence: 90%
Severity confidence: 85%
Rationale: EU policy opacity and undisclosed corporate influence on data center energy reporting regulations.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8