Europe Tech Companies Urge EU Countries to Counter US Big Tech
Europe Tech CEOs have urged all countries in the region to take bold action in tackling the dominance of US big techs. According to CNBC, the CEOs also want the region to counter its dependence on the US for important technologies such as AI following Donald Trump’s election win.
The Europe First Approach
Trump’s electoral win featured prominently in conversations among European tech leaders during the Web Summit held in Lisbon, Portugal. Most conference attendees are not sure what Trump’s impact on EU technology will be, this uncertainty presents a big challenge for tech companies.
Andy Yen, the CEO at Swiss VPN, Proton suggests that European countries should adopt the American protectionism idea by embracing the ‘Europe-first’ approach. According to Yen, this could go a long way in reversing the two-decade trend that has seen US tech companies dominate critical technologies including smartphones, search engines, and web browsing.
“It’s time for Europe to step up. It’s time to be bold. It’s time to be more aggressive. And the time is now, because we now have a leader in the U.S. that is ‘America-first,’ so I think our European leaders should be ‘Europe-first,” Yen said.
As the tech race intensifies, EU tech CEOs want their countries to make the right choice. They want European governments to ensure the continent is not left behind in tech advancements and that European startups can fend for themselves.
“If you look very realistically at what countries do, they try to take care of themselves and they try to form coalitions to be stronger by themselves, and as a coalition. We have a lot of talented, well-educated people.” Thomas Plantenga, CEO of Used Clothing Resale App, Vinted said.
An Unfair Playing Field
Tech CEOs urged EU countries not to go slow on European attempts to counter US efforts to maintain tech dominance in the region. They emphasized the need to continue government rein on US tech giants.
“Europe has been thinking in a very globalist mindset. They’re thinking we need to be fair to everybody, we need to open our market to everybody, we need to play fair, because we believe in fairness. Well, guess what? The Americans and the Chinese didn’t get the memo. They have been playing extremely unfairly for the last 20 years. And now they have a president that is extremely ‘America-first,’” Yen added.
But this might be easier said than done. As the Trump administration takes power, EU countries are concerned that taking tough action against US-based tech giants could trigger retaliation. EU countries have been pushing for legal action and introduction of tough regulation to curtail the dominance of big techs like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon.
EU Digital Market Act
The EU has taken steps towards addressing unfair tech practices. One of the significant actions the region took was the enactment of the EU Digital Market Act (DMA) in 2020. The DMA was developed to inject fairness in the digital sector. It’s also aimed at maintaining high competition in the EU digital market by keeping large tech companies from abusing their market power.
Although implementation of the EU’s DMA only commenced in 2022, the law has already had a meaningful impact on big tech. For instance, former Mozilla Foundation CEO, Mitchell Baker said the law led to the implementation of ‘choice screen’ feature on Android phones by Google. This allowed users to pick the search engine they wanted, a change that led to increased activity on Firefox browser.
“The change in Firefox new users and market share on Android is noticeable. That’s nice for us- but it’s also an indicator of how much power and centralized distribution that these companies have. This change in usage because of one choice screen isn’t the full picture. But it is an indicator of the kind of things that consumers can’t choose and that businesses can’t build successfully because of the way the tech industry is structured right now,” Baker added.
