Margrethe Vestager stays on as EU competition head in blow for tech giants
cityam.com
cityam.com
Let's see Vestager take action against Airbus after the WTO finds against them this fall and I'll be more convinced. Maybe they'll even take on VW Group.
"Think of the jobs" is the ultimate callout of corporate defenders, while the EU is a huge profitable market for these companies they will stick around... Just compare to what happens in China, if that country still attracts tech companies then I don't think the EU will be shedding them anytime soon.
That isn't necessarily true at all. The EU may be a large market, but that doesn't necessarily mean it represents a proportionately large contribution to the revenues of any given business that trades with EU customers.
For example, in the world of small tech businesses I operate in, I know of several examples who do offer their services to EU customers like anyone else. However, with hindsight, those businesses would have chosen to give up the relatively small proportion of their business that comes from elsewhere in the EU some time ago, if that also saved them the time and money they spent complying with ever-increasing levels of EU red tape. I even know some people who feel so strongly about this that they voted for Brexit because of it.
I'm writing this from the UK, where Brexit seems like the only political topic in town right now. The way the media reports it, and the way the government talks about it, you'd think we were a country full of large manufacturing businesses that do most of their trade with the EU, yet in reality most of our economy is service-based, the majority of it is SMEs, and only a relatively small proportion of our businesses do any trade with the EU at all.
I'm sorry if I misunderstood what you meant, but I don't think it was unfair to challenge what you actually wrote, given that many of the large tech businesses we were discussing up to that point do not in fact have the kind of ties to the EU that your comment was talking about, the EU does have a relatively weak tech sector, and the heavy regulatory environment is a contributor to that. This isn't just a nitpick. It fundamentally supports the position of the person you were disagreeing with and contradicts your own argument.
You think the world of excellence in tech starts and finishes with Google? You think there aren't tons of firms in the EU that do real, quality engineering? Laughable.
Can you explain further? I guess the "on a global scenario" hedge is to note that in any local context they're less powerful than even the smallest of local governments -- they can't fine or tax anyone, after all. They can't pass laws like all nations can, they can't use force like all nations can, etc.
But maybe you mean something else by "power"? Like they have more popular websites or something?
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...
And the decision we're applauding here was her's. So she does seem to be off to a good start.
Her time as minister of defense isn't everything she is being criticized for. she earned the "Zensursula" moniker as minister of family.
>And the decision we're applauding here was her's. So she does seem to be off to a good start.
Yeah, lets give her the chance to be a good surprise by keeping up stuff like this decision.
All major companies from the US already gained a huge competitive advantage by being first-movers and the resulting network effects, which are hard to overcome. The incentive for an average European citizen to switch from something like Google to Qwant is basically zero.
I understand the reasons for the EU to force taxes and regulations on tech giants, but this alone will not help the EU to invent itself anew. We're stuck behind and will be for a long time. You cannot change the culture through taxes.
But lack of competition even among US companies causes a lot of problems and harm for EU consumers, so I understand why this would still be a very big issue for them to ensure big tech is broken up... even if it just leads to new US-based competitors.
As long as the EU remains strong in actual technology, the EU doesn't need to reinvent itself on the spot. As far as being "stuck behind for a long time" is concerned, if it remains behind in corporate surveillance and privacy trampling, that's alright by me.
Also, the US has a corporate structure which is brutal in terms of competition. (and it has a less equal society as a result).
But, having founded two (small) software companies in Europe, I can assure you I have not once felt any significant impact of regulation. Stuff like GDPR is a nuance at best, employment, tax, data protection, and obviously anti-trust law all have exemptions for smaller companies, etc.
If you start a gas fracking business or want to clone people you'll run into trouble rather quickly. But putting X people in a room and building software requires negligible amounts of paperwork.
To me it feels more like Europe doesn't have its own tech sector. The US and China both have many large tech companies with a market cap of $10B+. Whereas Europe has... Spotify and that's it?
There are still a lot of tech workers employed in Europe by the American companies, though.
and the massively increased compliance costs will ensure that no domestic small competitor will ever be able to challenge their position
that's some effective change
[1]: https://www.politico.eu/article/gdpr-facebook-google-privacy...
The point was that his comment was a non-sequitor. The EU strengthening Google's monopoly position will not make advertising go away.
(Also, my perhaps naive hope is that the better the Google's market share here, the more damage will be caused by EU regulating the space.)
For startups and those not yet successful, attitudes to failure, finance and VC tend to be very different in Europe than in the US, which I think is far more significant to success than the EU.