@Google.com and Hungarian publishers reportedly clashed today before the EU's highest court in a case with huge *potential* to define or even remake EU © law as plaintiffs urge; @Google.com argues the CJEU needn't and shouldn't.... 👀🧵⤵️
Full reuters story is here btw: www.reuters.com/world/googl...
It's unfortunate, but that's where we're at when enforcement is a quasi-religious war of fighting monopolies instead of achieving good outcomes for users.
What's even worse is that this is going to help US-based Booking which is itself a Gatekeeper, and at the expense of airlines, hoteliers, and other direct sellers that are themselves being squeezed by other intermediaries.
Back in March of last year, Airlines were already seeing earlier changes driving up the cost of tickets as they were forced to go through intermediaries and restricted from selling to end-users directly via Google Search results thedigitalcurtain.eu/#airlines-s...
The Reuters article confirms the worst, this is about elevating rivals.
I've written about this extensively before, and the demands from rivals bsky.app/profile/kay...
Google is making further changes to its search result page in Europe, in order to placate European Commission demands.
It's been a long back and forth of shifting goalposts, but we might finally be nearing an end, with Google rivals coming out on top, and consumers losing out.
But it's still forcing these leading US companies that have made massive capex and R&D investments to divert their resources towards building an ecosystem where others benefit from their investments.
That's ultimately what US interlocutors are annoyed by (vis-a-vis digital)
And the remedies imposed are invariably about opening up opportunities for rivals, sharing their technology.
European voices say these benefits accrue just as much to US companies as to European ones.
Invariably the targets are large US companies, but they say this is non-discriminatory because they're targeted due to their size, not their country of origin.
It's a bit disingenuous if you ask me, because either way, they're not being targeted because of harm they've caused
How are Amazon's promotion of low-price offers in line with traditional antitrust?
They're not. They're about constraining market power and turning Amazon into public infrastructure.
bsky.app/profile/kay...
That's what's causing the trade tension with the US: divergence from traditional antitrust's focus on harmful conduct and consumer welfare bsky.app/profile/kay...
It's a turn towards using competition tools to "constrain" "prevent" or "address" market power: it's market restructuring, but through the guise of "fairness" and "contestability".
It's a view often talked about behind closed doors, you don't see it rise to the surface very often. But sometimes you do. pro.politico.eu/news/208571
One of the other levers has been regulatory enforcement: primarily competition related, forcing US companies to give up their IP and platforms to European rivals, to become more "open source" and "interoperable", middleware for European value-add services built on top.
But the truth is there are real dependencies that need to be addressed.
Even if most European policymakers recognise that a complete de-coupling is not realistic. www.politico.eu/article/eu-...
The US Administration of course isn't doing itself any favours with headlines like this "Pentagon aggressively lobbies EU against Buy European weapons push", it's a bit of a hit to European pride to be told what to do, makes the opposite more likely www.politico.eu/article/was...
There's increasing focus these days in Brussels on "tech sovereignty" and the need to de-couple from the US.
Lots of ways of doing this, lots of different approaches, some of which will escalate transatlantic tension more than others.
"Buy European" mandates are a poor option.
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“Brussels sorely misses a tech-optimistic vision of European success. We need to pierce the policymaking bubble because Europe can’t afford business as usual any longer.” - @kayjebelli.bsky.social
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Really proud of this one. Let's bring some Builder energy to Brussels!
The UK is succeeding in addressing the most harmful practices of big tech, without causing negative side-effects on users, and without making enforcement political, or geopolitical, and without enflaming international trade tensions.
Kudos to them.
What I hadn't predicted was the severe blowback from the Trump administration (indeed, many thought they would have just as much populist animosity against tech as their predecessors).
That blowback is costing European citizens in more immediate ways bsky.app/profile/kay...
I've written extensively about how the EU's enforcement of the DMA as an industrial policy tool has had significant unintended and harmful consequences for users bsky.app/profile/kay...
They're going after harms that are identified, with proportionate remedies that leave space for safeguards to protect citizens' interests. They're not making the mistakes that the EU has done with the DMA of putting rivals interests ahead of consumers, i.e. the "digital curtain"
While competition authorities elsewhere (*ahem*) have their digital enforcement tools wrapped up into notions of "digital sovereignty" and as a trade instrument to counterbalance US aggression, the CMA has avoided turning enforcement into a political tool.
A major major difference is the pragmatism of the CMA. Since 2024 they've focused this regime on providing pace, predictability, proportionality, fair processes, cognisant of their wider responsibilities, and grounded in reality, and getting results. www.gov.uk/government/...
I've written previously about the comparative advantages of the UK regime, they include the more tailored approach, the more open and transparent process for seeking input from third-parties, and the inherent flexibility of the tools.
But there's more. bsky.app/profile/pro...
Good ex-ante news out of the UK today, with the CMA looking to accept commitments from Apple and Google under the DMCCA and their designation as SMS firms for Mobile Ecosystems.
This means changes will happen sooner, and without extensive litigation. competitionandmarkets.blog.gov.uk/2026/02/10/...
