Google shouldn’t worry while EU commissars fight over policing tech giants

We have the laws already

In June, Vestager offered a clear “get off my patch” to DG-CONNECT. It’s daft to spend years making new rules when you already have rules, she said at a London conference.

“The risk is that you don’t have a piece of legislation that solves the present-day problem, not to speak about future problems,” Vestager said. “We have very good tools that have been tested [over] time,” she added, concluding: “Our challenge is to keep them sharp and to understand what we’re dealing with.”

But the problem is, are the remedies from DG COMP effective? Brussels acted pretty swiftly with Microsoft, but the software giant then spent years appealing.

In the end an eye-watering fine was imposed. But did this have the effect intended? If Microsoft is less dominant today, how much can be attributed to regulation and how much to market dynamics?

Google was on cosy terms with Vestager’s predecessor, the Spanish trade union economist Joaquin Almunia, but now faces a much more rigorous and demanding antitrust commissioner.

Yet even if the EU imposed a fine ten times the €561m imposed on Microsoft, would Google change its behaviour? Or even mind so much? That’s about a third of its annual profits, so it might worry a little.

But it hardly needs to worry about a shareholders' revolt. It might even be a price worth paying for dominating so many markets – and it could pay in instalments.

It looks like a classic Brussels turf war: DG CONNECT wants to expand its role, encroaching onto the turf of the older, more established (and certainly respected) DG COMP (Directorate-General for Competition), responsible for establishing EU competition policy. ®