Europe has a big headache: the current state of
American technology companies. And it may take a long time to go away.
Margrethe Vestager, the European
competition chief. Google will start responding this week to European antitrust
charges. Francois Lenoir/Reuters
As Mark Scott reports, Google will respond this week
to charges brought by the European Commission that the tech giant hobbles
competitors and squelches consumer choice in cases involving its Android mobile
operating system, its online searches and some advertising products.
In addition, Salesforce is pressing the commission to
look into Microsoft’s purchase of LinkedIn, which it says will hinder
Salesforce’s access to LinkedIn’s data about people, job skills and companies.
Facebook has faced issues about how its data on Europeans is transferred to the
United States. And the European Union has told Ireland it isn’t collecting
enough taxes from Apple.
With all these complaints, only Apple seems ensnared
in a traditional argument with regulators. The others, because they are
intrinsically tied to new kinds of business, require creative thinking about
the meaning and importance of data, privacy, competition and the like.
No European company has a comprehensive leading
position in the new tech world, which combines cloud computing, mobility, data
and artificial intelligence. But that’s probably not why the regulators are
preoccupied with Americans.
It’s the nature of big online businesses to seek as
much data as possible, and often engage with consumers in such a way that the
users share a lot about themselves in the name of fun (Facebook) and
professional advantage (LinkedIn).
Creating effective methods for searching for
information, for using smartphones or for building applications seems to enable
companies to acquire dominance more rapidly than ever. Some of that may be
because of noncompetitive behavior, but it is also because of the strong
network effects that benefit these companies. It’s cheap and easy to distribute
software online, and if people love your product, they will share and publicize
it for you.
The continued strength of Amazon Web Services is a
case in point. A.W.S. was an early leader in cloud computing, and it now hosts
services like Twilio, used to build cloud-based communications, Stripe, a
payments service, and Braintree, used in mobile commerce.
Software developers using these applications may
choose among other cloud providers, but having so many popular tools in A.W.S.
gives it an edge; it is also known and trusted.
It’s a strong model. And it quite possibly provides
years of work for European regulators, until they can integrate the new
businesses that technology creates into old customs and laws.
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