Sunday, December 22, 2024

The EU’s antitrust chief has called for a global approach to internet juggernauts

Margrethe Vestager, the creator of historic antitrust regulations limiting the dominance of US tech behemoths, called for a global strategy to Big Tech on Thursday to avoid businesses exploiting enforcement gaps.

Vestager, who has fined Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google billions of euros and opened investigations against Apple (AAPL.O), Amazon (AMZN.O), and Meta Platform’s (FB.O) Facebook, stated that there is global agreement on the challenges raised by giant digital platforms.

“This debate is no longer a hot topic amongst competition practitioners but it has strong political attention,” she told a conference organized by the German Cartel Office.

Vestager urged antitrust watchdogs around the world to work together to tackle the issue.

“Close cooperation will be necessary because we will not be short of work and we will not be short of novel services or practices to look at,” she said.

“It goes without saying that the more we, as an international competition community, are able to harmonize our approach, the less opportunity there will be for global tech giants to exploit enforcement gaps between our jurisdictions,” Vestager said.
Google, Facebook, and Apple are also being investigated by US antitrust authorities and some US states. In South Korea, India, and Australia, Big Tech is also under assault.

 

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