‘EU puts twenty tech companies on the hit list for stricter regulation’

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European regulators are reportedly working on a hit list of twenty major tech companies that will have to comply with new and stricter regulations. The EU would thus want to limit the market power of the tech giants.

According to the Financial Times, large tech companies face tougher regulations than smaller competitors. The newspaper has heard this from sources familiar with the plans. It is not yet known which companies will be on the so-called hit list, but it is likely that the EU has at least tech giants such as Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft in its sights.

The list would be based on criteria such as market share and number of users. Companies would also be on the list if they have so much power that competitors have to use their platforms to have a right to exist. The EU would like to set new rules for such companies to force the giants to change their business, without first having to establish through a formal investigation that existing laws have been violated.

Exactly how many companies are on the list and what the conditions are for appearing on the list is still a matter of debate, the sources tell FT. The aim of the new regulations would be not only to issue fines, but to force companies, for example, to give competitors access to their platforms or to share data.

In extreme cases, consideration will be given to forcing tech companies to split up or to exclude them completely from the market. That said European Commissioner Thierry Breton in September. He made that statement in the context of a new bill that the European Commission is working on. That law should give the EU more power to act against tech giants. Presumably this has to do with compiling the list of major tech companies.

The power of large tech companies is increasingly gaining the attention of authorities worldwide. Last week, a committee of the United States House of Representatives published a major investigation concluding that companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google have abused their monopoly position. One of the recommendations is to break up companies. According to a rumor, the US Department of Justice is considering forcing Google to divest its Chrome browser and some of its advertising activities.

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