How Brazil is starting to rein in Big Tech

On April 24, Brazil’s competition authority, the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) announced it was opening an investigation to assess whether Google’s use of news content amounted to unfair competition practices against the Brazilian press. The announcement was welcomed by civil society organizations that have tried to push regulation to limit the reckless power of Big Tech for years. Ajor, Brazil’s Digital News Association, said that “a balanced relationship between digital platforms and journalism organizations is fundamental to the flourishing of journalism committed to the public interest. By ensuring a fair competitive environment, Cade directly advances that goal.”

In spirit and intent, CADE’s investigation into Google is similar to legislation in Australia that recognized that value is being extracted from news publishers without proportionate recompense. In Brazil, the case has been debated since 2019, but the adoption of AI Overviews helped alter the perspective of Brazilian judges. The overviews are artificially generated summaries that synthesize information from several sources and appear at the top of Google Search results. They “raise potentially more concerns,” ruled Judge Camila Cabral Pires Alves, “as they may more profoundly alter the economic function of the interface and expand the ability to retain attention within the platform’s own environment.”

CADE will now investigate whether Google should be sanctioned for “alleged abusive exploitation of a dominant position, in light of the technological evolution of the conduct.” While there is perhaps a greater global appetite to regulate the impacts of AI – even the Trump administration has recently acknowledged that some oversight may be necessary – the CADE judges have been under considerable pressure from Big Tech executives to stop investigations into how their control of the market harms Brazilian businesses.

For those of us who have reported on Big Tech, this aggressive lobbying is not surprising. Companies like Google, Meta, Twitter, TikTok, Amazon, and Microsoft have long attempted to interfere in any decision or legislation that can harm their interests in Latin America. According to a joint investigation by journalists across 13 countries, Big Tech lobbyists got away with convincing legislators in Colombia to weaken a rule meant to protect children’s mental health and prevent enforcement of privacy regulations in Ecuador. It took a team of over 40 journalists from 13 countries to uncover this while reporting on the ‘Big Tech Lobby’ in the continent and across the world.

Threats by the U.S. government to retaliate against any country or international entity that sought to regulate Big Tech added another layer to an already complicated and uneven relationship with Silicon Valley. “Digital Taxes, Digital Services Legislation, and Digital Markets Regulations are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology,” wrote Donald Trump on social media. “Show respect to America and our amazing Tech Companies or consider the consequences!” During the past year, Trump’s envoys have forced dozens of governments around the world to dilute or even shelve regulation in exchange for lifting tariffs.

In “Big Tech’s Invisible Hands,” which I coordinated alongside Maria Teresa Ronderos, from CLIP (Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodistica), journalists mapped a total of 75 executives that were part of “public policy” or “government relations” teams in Brazil. Tech companies utilized a “revolving door” in which public sector employees could go straight into highly paid jobs leveraging their contacts and influence. Doors opened more easily. Invitations to hangouts and events were more likely to be accepted.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on May 7, 2026. Brazilian Government / Ricardo Stuckert / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images.

Lobbying in Brazil is dialed up to eleven. The country has 163 million internet users, with over 150 million on WhatsApp, and over 120 million on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. With AI, Brazil is a similarly large, influential market. Portuguese is the sixth most widely-spoken language in the world, with 70% of speakers based in Brazil. Which means that, if an LLM has been trained in this language, it probably used content created by millions of Brazilians going about their business of making friends, debating politics and football online. It’s not just about journalists; we are all unpaid labor for Big Tech.

In the words of Arthur Lira, the Speaker in Brazil’s Congress who filed a criminal complaint against Big Tech executives in 2023, companies adopted a variety of tactics “to shut down democratic debate and intimidate lawmakers” and defeat any attempt at using legislation to force accountability. Google, he said, used its search homepage, used by over 85% of Brazilians, to spread fear that propo…