EU Digital Chief Urges Regulation to Nurture European Internet Platforms

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The European Union should regulate Internet platforms in a way that allows a new generation of European operators to overtake the dominant US players, the bloc’s digital czar said, in an unusually blunt assessment of the risks that US Web giants are viewed as posing to the continent’s industrial heartland.

Speaking at a major industrial fair in Hannover, Germany, the EU’s digital commissioner, Günther Oettinger, said Europe’s online businesses were “dependent on a few non-EU players world-wide” because the region had “missed many opportunities” in the development of online platforms. Commissioner Oettinger spoke of the need to “replace today’s Web search engines, operating systems and social networks” without naming any companies. European policy makers frequently refer to Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google when discussing the power of big Internet companies. His speech illustrates that policy makers’ concerns about US technology companies extend beyond issues like privacy, copyright and tax into the broader competitive threat they pose to European industry. “This must not be the case again in the future,” commissioner Oettinger said. “The ‘data economy’ should not develop in locked environments and platforms.” Instead, the Internet platforms of the future “must be more open and interoperable,” and be “based on standards with a significant contribution from European industry.”


EU Digital Chief Urges Regulation to Nurture European Internet Platforms