The European Fee, which introduced Thursday an inquiry into Microsoft’s promotion of its Groups messaging app, has fought US tech giants on fronts from tax avoidance, disinformation and hate speech to knowledge privateness and monopolistic practices.
Here’s a abstract of the tussles between Silicon Valley and Brussels.
– Stifling competitors –
The European Fee on Thursday mentioned it will examine whether or not Microsoft was “abusing and defending its market place” by bundling its Groups app with its Workplace suite.
It comes a month after the fee beneficial that Google dump a part of its enterprise following a two-year probe into its dominance of internet marketing.
If Google fails to conform it might face a superb of as much as 10 p.c of its world income below the 2022 Digital Markets Act.
Brussels has already slapped over eight billion euros in fines on Google for abusing its dominant market place.
In 2018, the corporate was fined 4.three billion euros ($4.eight billion) — the most important ever antitrust penalty imposed by the EU — for abusing the dominant place of its Android cellular working system to advertise its search engine.
The superb was later diminished to 4.1 billion euros.
The agency has additionally incurred billion-plus fines for abusing its energy within the on-line procuring and promoting sectors.
Apple has additionally been within the EU’s sights, with Brussels investigating its dominance amongst music streaming apps.
– Taxation –
The EU has had much less success in getting tech corporations to pay extra taxes in Europe, the place they’re accused of funnelling earnings into low-tax economies like Eire and Luxembourg.
In one of the vital infamous instances, the European Fee in 2016 discovered that Eire granted unlawful tax advantages to Apple and ordered the corporate to pay 13 billion euros in again taxes.
The EU’s Normal Courtroom later overturned the ruling, saying there was no proof the corporate broke the principles, a choice promptly appealed by the Fee.
The Fee additionally misplaced an analogous case involving Amazon, which it had ordered to repay 250 million euros in again taxes to Luxembourg.
In October 2021, following intensive lobbying by European nations, the G20 group of countries agreed on a minimal 15-percent company tax fee.
– Privateness –
Brussels has additionally handed down billions in fines over breaches of information safety guidelines.
Eire, which homes the European headquarters of a number of huge tech companies, has hit Meta with a string of eye-watering fines.
They embrace a document penalty of 1.2 billion euros imposed in Might for illegally transferring private knowledge between Europe and the USA.
Amazon beforehand held the document after Luxembourg slapped it with a 746 million euro penalty in July 2021 for breaching the bloc’s landmark 2018 knowledge safety regulation (GDPR).
– Disinformation, hate speech –
Internet platforms have confronted accusations for years of failing to fight hate speech, disinformation and piracy.
The EU adopted the Digital Providers Act final yr to drive huge on-line corporations to sort out these points or face fines of as much as six p.c of their world turnover.
Nineteen main platforms are required to adjust to the act beginning August 25 this yr, they embrace TikTok, Instagram and Twitter, which is now being rebranded as “X”.
– Paying for information –
Google and different on-line platforms have additionally been accused of constructing billions from information with out sharing the income with those that collect it.
To sort out this, the EU created a type of copyright referred to as “neighbouring rights” that enables print media to demand compensation for utilizing their content material.
After preliminary resistance, Google and Fb agreed to pay French media for articles proven in internet searches. Google has reached an settlement with AFP on neighbouring rights.
